TO THE INDIES EASTWARD--PRINCE HENRY AND VASCO DA GAMA
Up to the fifteenth century the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula
were chiefly occupied in slowly moving back the tide of Mohammedan
conquest, which had spread nearly throughout the country from 711
onwards. The last sigh of the Moor in Spain was to be uttered in
1492--an epoch-making year, both in history and in geography. But
Portugal, the western side of the peninsula, had got rid of her
Moors at a much earlier date--more that 200 years before--though
she found it difficult to preserve her independence from the
neighbouring kingdom of Castile. The attempt of King Juan of Castile
to conquer the country was repelled by João, a natural son of the
preceding king of Portugal, and in 1385 he became king, and freed
Portugal from any danger on the side of Castile by his victory
at Aljubarrota. He married Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt;
and his third son, Henry, was destined to be the means of
revolutionising men's views of the inhabited globe. He first showed
his mettle in the capture of Ceuta, opposite Gibraltar, at the
time of the battle of Agincourt, 1415, and by this means he first
planted the Portuguese banner on the Moorish coast. This contact
with the Moors may possibly have first suggested to Prince Henry
the idea of planting similar factory-fortresses among the Mussulmans
of India; but, whatever the cause, he began, from about the year
1418, to devote all his thoughts and attention to the possibility
of reaching India otherwise than through the known routes, and
for that purpose established himself on the rocky promontory of
Sagres, almost the most western spot on the continent of Europe.
Here he established an observatory, and a seminary for the training of
theoretical and practical navigators. He summoned thither astronomers
and cartographers and skilled seamen, while he caused stouter and
larger vessels to be built for the express purpose of exploration.
He perfected the astrolabe (the clumsy predecessor of the modern
sextant) by which the latitude could be with some accuracy determined;
and he equipped all his ships with the compass, by which their
steering was entirely determined. He brought from Majorca (which,
as we have seen, was the centre of practical map-making in the
fourteenth century) one Mestre Jacme, "a man very skilful in the
art of navigation, and in the making of maps and instruments."
With his aid, and doubtless that of others, he set himself to study
the problem of the possibility of a sea voyage to India round the
coast of Africa.
[Illustration: PROGRESS OF PORTUGUESE DISCOVERY]
We have seen that Ptolemy, with true scientific caution, had left
undefined the extent of Africa to the south; but Eratosthenes and
many of the Roman geographers, even after Ptolemy, were not content
with this agnosticism, but boldly assumed that the coast of Africa
made a semicircular sweep from the right horn of Africa, just south
of the Red Sea, with which they were acquainted, round to the
north-western shore, near what we now term Morocco. If this were
the fact, the voyage by the ocean along this sweep of shore would
be even shorter than the voyage through the Mediterranean and Red
Seas, while of course there would be no need for disembarking at
the Isthmus of Suez. The writers who thus curtailed Africa of its
true proportions assumed another continent south of it, which,
however, was in the torrid zone, and completely uninhabitable.
Now the north-west coast of Africa was known in Prince Henry's
days as far as Cape Bojador. It would appear that Norman sailors
had already advanced beyond Cape Non, or Nun, which was so called
because it was supposed that nothing existed beyond it. Consequently
the problems that Prince Henry had to solve were whether the coast of
Africa trended sharply to the east after Cape Bojador, and whether
the ideas of the ancients about the uninhabitability of the torrid
zone were justified by fact. He attempted to solve these problems by
sending out, year after year, expeditions down the north-west coast
of Africa, each of which penetrated farther than its predecessor.
Almost at the beginning he was rewarded by the discovery, or
re-discovery, of Madeira in 1420, by João Gonsalvez Zarco, one of
the squires of his household. For some time he was content with
occupying this and the neighbouring island of Porto Santo, which,
however, was ruined by the rabbits let loose upon it. On Madeira
vines from Burgundy were planted, and to this day form the chief
industry of the island. In 1435 Cape Bojador was passed, and in
1441 Cape Branco discovered. Two years later Cape Verde was reached
and passed by Nuno Tristão, and for the first time there were signs
that the African coast trended eastward. By this time Prince Henry's
men had become familiar with the natives along the shore and no less
than one thousand of them had been brought back and distributed
among the Portuguese nobles as pages and attendants. In 1455 a
Venetian, named Alvez Cadamosto, undertook a voyage still farther
south for purposes of trade, the Prince supplying the capital, and
covenanting for half profits on results. They reached the mouth
of the Gambia, but found the natives hostile. Here for the first
time European navigators lost sight of the pole-star and saw the
brilliant constellation of the Southern Cross. The last discovery
made during Prince Henry's life was that of the Cape Verde Islands,
by one of his captains, Diogo Gomez, in 1460--the very year of his
death. As the successive discoveries were made, they were jotted
down by the Prince's cartographers on portulanos, and just before
his death the King of Portugal sent to a Venetian monk, Fra Mauro,
details of all discoveries up to that time, to be recorded on a
_mappa mundi_, a copy of which still exists (p. 77).
The impulse thus given by Prince Henry's patient investigation of
the African coast continued long after his death. In 1471 Fernando
de Poo discovered the island which now bears his name, while in
the same year Pedro d'Escobar crossed the equator. Wherever the
Portuguese investigators landed they left marks of their presence,
at first by erecting crosses, then by carving on trees Prince Henry's
motto, "Talent de bien faire," and finally they adopted the method
of erecting stone pillars, surmounted by a cross, and inscribed
with the king's arms and name. These pillars were called _padraos_.
In 1484, Diego Cam, a knight of the king's household, set up one
of these pillars at the mouth of a large river, which he therefore
called the Rio do Padrao; it was called by the natives the Zaire, and
is now known as the River Congo. Diego Cam was, on this expedition,
accompanied by Martin Behaim of Nürnberg, whose globe is celebrated
in geographical history as the last record of the older views (p.
115).
Meanwhile, from one of the envoys of the native kings who visited
the Portuguese Court, information was received that far to the east
of the countries hitherto discovered there was a great Christian
king. This brought to mind the mediæval tradition of Prester John,
and accordingly the Portuguese determined to make a double attempt,
both by sea and by land, to reach this monarch. By sea the king
sent two vessels under the command of Bartholomew Diaz, while by
land he despatched, in the following year, two men acquainted with
Arabic, Pedro di Covilham and Affonso de Payba. Covilham reached
Aden, and there took ship for Calicut, being the first Portuguese
to sail the Indian Ocean. He then returned to Sofala, and obtained
news of the Island of the Moon, now known as Madagascar. With this
information he returned to Cairo, where he found ambassadors from
João, two Jews, Abraham of Beja and Joseph of Lamejo. These he
sent back with the information that ships that sailed down the
coast of Guinea would surely reach the end of Africa, and when
they arrived in the Eastern Ocean they should ask for Sofala and
the Island of the Moon. Meanwhile Covilham returned to the Red
Sea, and made his way into Abyssinia, where he married and settled
down, transmitting from time to time information to Portugal which
gave Europeans their first notions of Abyssinia.
The voyage by land in search of Prester John had thus been completely
successful, while, at the same time, information had been obtained
giving certain hopes of the voyage by sea. This had, in its way,
been almost as successful, for Diaz had rounded the cape now known
as the Cape of Good Hope, but to which he proposed giving the title
of Cabo Tormentoso, or "Stormy Cape." King João, however, recognising
that Diaz's voyage had put the seal upon the expectations with
which Prince Henry had, seventy years before, started his series
of explorations, gave it the more auspicious name by which it is
now known.
For some reason which has not been adequately explained, no further
attempt was made for nearly ten years to carry out the final
consummation of Prince Henry's plan by sending out another expedition.
In the meantime, as we shall see, Columbus had left Portugal, after
a mean attempt had been made by the king to carry out his novel
plan of reaching India without his aid; and, as a just result,
the discovery of a western voyage to the Indies (as it was then
thought) had been successfully accomplished by Columbus, in the
service of the Catholic monarchs of Spain, in 1492. This would
naturally give pause to any attempt at reaching India by the more
cumbersome route of coasting along Africa, which had turned out
to be a longer process than Prince Henry had thought. Three years
after Columbus's discovery King João died, and his son and successor
Emmanuel did not take up the traditional Portuguese method of reaching
India till the third year of his reign.
By this time it had become clear, from Columbus's second voyage,
that there were more difficulties in the way of reaching the Indies
by his method than had been thought; and the year after his return
from his second voyage in 1496, King Emmanuel determined on once
more taking up the older method. He commissioned Vasco da Gama,
a gentleman of his court, to attempt the eastward route to India
with three vessels, carrying in all about sixty men. Already by this
time Columbus's bold venture into the unknown seas had encouraged
similar boldness in others, and instead of coasting down the whole
extent of the western coast of Africa, Da Gama steered direct for
Cape Verde Islands, and thence out into the ocean, till he reached
the Bay of St. Helena, a little to the north of the Cape of Good
Hope.
For a time he was baffled in his attempt to round the Cape by the
strong south-easterly winds, which blow there continually during
the summer season; but at last he commenced coasting along the
eastern shores of Africa, and at every suitable spot he landed
some of his sailors to make inquiries about Covilham and the court
of Prester John. But in every case he found the ports inhabited
by fanatical Moors, who, as soon as they discovered that their
visitors were Christians, attempted to destroy them, and refused
to supply them with pilots for the further voyage to India. This
happened at Mozambique, at Quiloa, and at Mombasa, and it was not
till he arrived at Melinda that he was enabled to obtain provisions
and a pilot, Malemo Cana, an Indian of Guzerat, who was quite familiar
with the voyage to Calicut. Under his guidance Gama's fleet went
from Melinda to Calicut in twenty-three days. Here the Zamorin, or
sea-king, displayed the same antipathy to his Christian visitors.
The Mohammedan traders of the place recognised at once the dangerous
rivalry which the visit of the Portuguese implied, with their monopoly
of the Eastern trade, and represented Gama and his followers as
merely pirates. Vasco, however, by his firm behaviour, managed
to evade the machinations of his trade rivals, and induced the
Zamorin to regard favourably an alliance with the Portuguese king.
Contenting himself with this result, he embarked again, and after
visiting Melinda, the only friendly spot he had found on the east
coast of Africa, he returned to Lisbon in September 1499, having
spent no less than two years on the voyage. King Emmanuel received
him with great favour, and appointed him Admiral of the Indies.
The significance of Vasco da Gama's voyage was at once seen by
the persons whose trade monopoly it threatened--the Venetians,
and the Sultan of Egypt. Priuli, the Venetian chronicler, reports:
"When this news reached Venice the whole city felt it greatly,
and remained stupefied, and the wisest held it as the worst news
that had ever arrived"--as indeed they might, for it prophesied the
downfall of the Venetian Empire. The Sultan of Egypt was equally
moved, for the greatest source of his riches was derived from the
duty of five per cent. which he levied on all merchandise entering
his dominions, and ten per cent. upon all goods exported from them.
Hitherto there had been all manner of bickerings between Venice and
Egypt, but this common danger brought them together. The Sultan
represented to Venice the need of common action in order to drive
away the new commerce; but Egypt was without a navy, and had indeed
no wood suitable for shipbuilding. The Venetians took the trouble
to transmit wood to Cairo, which was then carried by camels to
Suez, where a small fleet was prepared to attack the Portuguese
on their next visit to the Indian Ocean.
The Portuguese had in the meantime followed up Vasco da Gama's voyage
with another attempt, which was, in its way, even more important. In
1500 the king sent no less than thirteen ships under the command
of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, with Franciscans to convert, and twelve
hundred fighting men to overawe, the Moslems of the Indian Ocean.
He determined on steering even a more westerly course than Vasco da
Gama, and when he arrived in 17° south of the line, he discovered land
which he took possession of in the name of Portugal, and named Santa
Cruz. The actual cross which he erected on this occasion is still
preserved in Brazil, for Cabral had touched upon the land now known
by that name. It is true that one of Columbus's companions, Pinzon,
had already touched upon the coast of Brazil before Cabral, but it
is evident from his experience that, even apart from Columbus, the
Portuguese would have discovered the New World sooner or later. It
is, however, to be observed that in stating this, as all historians
do, they leave out of account the fact that, but for Columbus,
sailors would still have continued the old course of coasting along
the shore, by which they would never have left the Old World. Cabral
lost several of his ships and many of his men, and, though he brought
home a rich cargo, was not regarded as successful, and Vasco da
Gama was again sent out with a large fleet in 1502, with which
he conquered the Zamorin of Calicut and obtained rich treasures.
In subsidiary voyages the Portuguese navigators discovered the
islands of St. Helena, Ascension, the Seychelles, Socotra, Tristan
da Cunha, the Maldives, and Madagascar.
Meanwhile King Emmanuel was adopting the Venetian method of
colonisation, which consisted in sending a Vice-Doge to each of
its colonies for a term of two years, during which his duty was to
encourage trade and to collect tribute. In a similar way, Emmanuel
appointed a Viceroy for his Eastern trade, and in 1505 Almeida
had settled in Ceylon, with a view to monopolising the cinnamon
trade of that place.
[Illustration: PORTUGUESE INDIES]
But the greatest of the Portuguese viceroys was Affonso de Albuquerque,
who captured the important post of Goa, on the mainland of India,
which still belongs to Portugal, and the port of Ormuz, which,
we have seen, was one of the centres of the Eastern trade. Even
more important was the capture of the Moluccas, or Spice Islands,
which were discovered in 1511, after the Portuguese had seized
Malacca. By 1521 the Portuguese had full possession of the Spice
Islands, and thus held the trade of condiments entirely in their
own hands. The result was seen soon in the rise of prices in the
European markets. Whereas at the end of the fifteenth century pepper,
for instance, was about 17s. a pound, from 1521 and onwards its
average price grew to be 25s., and so with almost all the ingredients
by which food could be made more tasty. One of the circumstances,
however, which threw the monopoly into the hands of the Portuguese
was the seizure of Egypt in 1521 by the Turks under Selim I., which
would naturally derange the course of trade from its old route
through Alexandria. From the Moluccas easy access was found to
China, and ultimately to Japan, so that the Portuguese for a time
held in their hands the whole of the Eastern trade, on which Europe
depended for most of its luxuries.
As we shall see, the Portuguese only won by a neck--if we may use
a sporting expression--in the race for the possession of the Spice
Islands. In the very year they obtained possession of them, Magellan,
on his way round the world, had reached the Philippines, within a
few hundred miles of them, and his ship, the _Victoria_, actually
sailed through them that year. In fact, 1521 is a critical year in
the discovery of the world, for both the Spanish and Portuguese
(the two nations who had attempted to reach the Indies eastward and
westward) arrived at the goal of their desires, the Spice Islands,
in that same year, while the closure of Egypt to commerce occurred
opportunely to divert the trade into the hands of the Portuguese.
Finally, the year 1521 was signalised by the death of King Emmanuel
of Portugal, under whose auspices the work of Prince Henry the
Navigator was completed.
It must here be observed that we are again anticipating matters. As
soon as the discovery of the New World was announced, the Pope was
appealed to, to determine the relative shares of Spain and Portugal
in the discoveries which would clearly follow upon Columbus's voyage.
By his Bull, dated 4th May 1493, Alexander VI. granted all discoveries
to the west to Spain, leaving it to be understood that all to the
east belonged to Portugal. The line of demarcation was an imaginary
one drawn from pole to pole, and passing one hundred leagues west
of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, which were supposed, in the
inaccurate geography of the time, to be in the same meridian. In
the following year the Portuguese monarch applied for a revision
of the _raya_, as this would keep him out of all discovered in
the New World altogether; and the line of demarcation was then
shifted 270 leagues westward, or altogether 1110 miles west of
the Cape Verdes. By a curious coincidence, within six years Cabral
had discovered Brazil, which fell within the angle thus cut off by
the _raya_ from South America. Or was it entirely a coincidence?
May not Cabral have been directed to take this unusually westward
course in order to ascertain if any land fell within the Portuguese
claims? When, however, the Spice Islands were discovered, it remained
to be discussed whether the line of demarcation, when continued
on the other side of the globe, brought them within the Spanish
or Portuguese "sphere of influence," as we should say nowadays.
By a curious chance they happened to be very near the line, and,
with the inaccurate maps of the period, a pretty subject of quarrel
was afforded between the Portuguese and Spanish commissioners who
met at Badajos to determine the question. This was left undecided
by the Junta, but by a family compact, in 1529, Charles V. ceded
to his brother-in-law, the King of Portugal, any rights he might
have to the Moluccas, for the sum of 350,000 gold ducats, while
he himself retained the Philippines, which have been Spanish ever
since.
By this means the Indian Ocean became, for all trade purposes, a
Portuguese lake throughout the sixteenth century, as will be seen
from the preceding map, showing the trading stations of the Portuguese
all along the shores of the ocean. But they only possessed their
monopoly for fifty years, for in 1580 the Spanish and Portuguese
crowns became united on the head of Philip II., and by the time
Portugal recovered its independence, in 1640, serious rivals had
arisen to compete with her and Spain for the monopoly of the Eastern
trade.
[_Authorities_: Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, 1869; Beazeley,
_Prince Henry the Navigator_, 1895; F. Hummerich, _Vasco da Gama_,
1896.]