BARTHOLOMEW DIAZ REACHES THE STORMY CAPE
But though Prince Henry was dead, the enthusiasm he had aroused among
Portuguese navigators was not dead, and Portuguese ships still stole
forth by twos and threes to search for treasure down the West African
coast. In 1462 they reached Sierra Leone, the farthest point attained
by Hanno of olden days. Each new headland was now taken in the name
of Portugal: wooden crosses already marked each successive discovery,
and many a tree near the coast bore the motto of Prince Henry carved
roughly on its bark. Portugal had officially claimed this "Kingdom
of the Seas" as it was called, and henceforth stone crosses some six
feet high, inscribed with the arms of Portugal, the name of the
navigator, and the date of discovery, marked each newly found spot.
It was not until 1471 that the navigators unconsciously crossed the
Equator, "into a new heaven and a new earth." They saw stars unknown
in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Northern Pole star sank nearly
out of sight. Another thirteen years and Diego Cam, a knight of the
King's household, found the mouth of the Congo and erected a great
Portuguese pillar on the famous spot. It was in the year 1484 that
Diego Cam was ordered to go "as far to the south as he could." He crossed
the Equator, which for past years had been the limit of knowledge,
and, continuing southwards he reached the mouth of the mighty river
Congo, now known as the second of all the African rivers for size.
The explorer ascended the river, falling in with peacefully inclined
natives. But they could not make themselves understood, so Cam took
back four of them to Portugal, where they learned enough Portuguese
to talk a little. They were much struck with Portugal and the kind
treatment they received from the King, who sent them back to their
country laden with presents for their black King at home. So with Diego
Cam they all sailed back to the Congo River. They were received by
the King in royal state. Seated on a throne of ivory raised on a lofty
wooden platform, he could be seen from all sides, his "black and
glittering skin" shining out above a piece of damask given to him to
wear by the Portuguese explorer. From his shoulder hung a dressed
horse's tail, a symbol of royalty; on his head was a cap of palm leaves.
It was here in this Congo district that the first negro was baptized
in the presence of some twenty-five thousand heathen comrades. The
ceremony was performed by Portuguese priests, and the negro King
ordered all idols to be destroyed throughout his dominions. Here, too,
a little Christian church was built, and the King and Queen became
such earnest Christians that they sent their children to Portugal to
be taught.
[Illustration: NEGRO BOYS, FROM CABOT'S MAP, 1544.]
But even the discoveries of Diego Cam pale before the great achievement
of Bartholomew Diaz, who was now to accomplish the great task which
Prince Henry the Navigator had yearned to see fulfilled--the rounding
of the Cape of Storms.
The expedition set sail for the south in August 1486. Passing the spot
where Diego Cam had erected his farthest pillar, Diaz reached a
headland, now known as Diaz Point, where he, too, placed a Portuguese
pillar that remained unbroken till about a hundred years ago. Still
to the south he sailed, struggling with wind and weather, to Cape Voltas,
close to the mouth of the Orange River. Then for another fortnight
the little ships were driven before the wind, south and ever south,
with half-reefed sails and no land in sight. Long days and longer nights
passed to find them still drifting in an unknown sea, knowing not what
an hour might bring forth. At last the great wind ceased to blow and
it became icy cold. They had sailed to the south of South Africa.
Steering north, Diaz now fell in with land--land with cattle near the
shore and cowherds tending them, but the black cowherds were so alarmed
at the sight of the Portuguese that they fled away inland.
We know now, what neither Diaz nor his crew even suspected, that he
had actually rounded, without seeing, the Cape of Good Hope. The coast
now turned eastward till a small island was reached in a bay we now
call Algoa Bay. Here Bartholomew Diaz set up another pillar with its
cross and inscription, naming the rock Santa Cruz. This was the first
land beyond the Cape ever trodden by European feet. Unfortunately the
natives--Kafirs--threw stones at them, and it was impossible to make
friends and to land. The crews, too, began to complain. They were worn
out with continual work, weary for fresh food, terrified at the heavy
seas that broke on these southern shores. With one voice they protested
against proceeding any farther. But the explorer could not bear to
turn back; he must sail onwards now, just three days more, and then
if they found nothing he would turn back. They sailed on and came to
the mouth of a large river--the Great Fish River. Again the keen
explorer would sail on and add to his already momentous discoveries.
But the crews again began their complaints and, deeply disappointed,
Diaz had to turn. "When he reached the little island of Santa Cruz
and bade farewell to the cross which he had there erected, it was with
grief as intense as if he were leaving his child in the wilderness
with no hope of ever seeing him again." To him it seemed as though
he had endured all his hardships in vain. He knew not what he had really
accomplished as yet. But his eyes were soon to be opened. Sailing
westward, Diaz at last came in sight of "that remarkable Cape which
had been hidden from the eyes of man for so many centuries."
[Illustration: THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA. From Martin Behaim's map,
1492.]
Remembering their perils past, he called it "the Stormy Cape" and
hastened home to the King of Portugal with his great news. The King
was overjoyed, but he refused to name it the Cape of Storms. Would
not such a name deter the seamen of the future? Was not this the
long-sought passage to India? Rather it should be called the Cape of
Good Hope, the name which it has held throughout the centuries. In
the course of one voyage, Diaz had accomplished the great task which
for the past seventy years Prince Henry had set before his people.
He had lifted for the first time in the history of the world the veil
that had hung over the mysterious extremity of the great African
continent. The Phoenicians may have discovered it some seventeen
hundred years before Diaz, but the record of tradition alone exists.
Now with the new art of printing, which was transforming the whole
aspect of life, the brilliant achievement of Bartholomew Diaz was made
known far and wide.
It was shortly to be followed by a yet more brilliant feat by a yet
more brilliant navigator, "the most illustrious that the world has
seen." The very name of Christopher Columbus calls up the vision of
a resolute man beating right out into the westward unknown seas and
finding as his great reward a whole new continent--a New World of whose
existence mankind had hardly dreamt.