THE PORTUGUESE CROSS THE EQUATOR FROM GUINEA TO CONGO—JOHN II. CONCEIVES THE IDEA OF A ROUTE BY SEA TO THE INDIES—HIS ARTIFICES TO PREVENT THE INTERFERENCE OF OTHER NATIONS—THE OVERLAND JOURNEY OF COVILLAM TO INDIA—THE VOYAGE OF BARTHOLOMEW DIAZ—THE DOUBLING OF THE TREMENDOUS CAPE—ITS BAPTISM BY THE KING—INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF SUCCESS UPON PORTUGUESE AMBITION.

During the remainder of the reign of Alphonso V.—which terminated in 1481—the Portuguese advanced over the coast and Gulf of Guinea and the adjacent islands to the northern boundary of the great kingdom of Congo, and had therefore arrived within six hundred and fifty marine leagues of the cape which forms the southern point of the African continent. They had crossed the equator, and not a man had turned black. They had entered into a brisk gold-trade with the savages of Guinea. John II., the son and successor of Alphonso, determined to fortify a point called Mina, from its abundant mines, and sent out twelve vessels with building materials and six hundred men. The negroes at first resisted, but finally yielded their consent. The fort was constructed and named St. Jorge da Mina; the quarry from which the first stone was taken being the favorite god of the tribe that inhabited the coast.

John II. now added to his other titles that of Lord of Guinea. In the hope of opening a passage by sea to the rich spice-countries of India, he asked the support and countenance of the different states of Christendom. But the established mercantile interest of these countries was naturally hostile to a project which aimed at changing the route of Eastern commerce. John next applied to the Pope for an increase of power, and obtained from his holiness a grant of all the lands which his navigators should discover in sailing from west to east. The grand idea of sailing from east to west—one which implied a knowledge of the sphericity of the globe—had not yet, to outward appearance, penetrated the brain of either pope or layman. One Christopher Columbus, however, was already brooding over it in secret and in silence.

It had hitherto been customary for Portuguese navigators to erect wooden crosses upon all lands discovered by them. John II. now commanded them to employ stone pillars six feet high, and to inscribe upon them, in the Latin and Portuguese languages, the date, the name of the reigning monarch, and that of the discoverer. Diego Cam was the first to comply with this command; he set up a column at the mouth of the river Congo, at which he arrived in 1484. An ambassador was sent by the chief of the territory to Portugal, where he embraced Christianity and was baptized by the name of John. The anxiety of the king now increased in reference to interference by other nations: he therefore sent to King Edward, of England, an earnest request that he would prevent the intended voyage to Guinea of two of his subjects, John Tintam and William Fabian, with which request Edward saw fit to comply. The Portuguese monarch now carefully concealed the progress of his navigators upon the African coast, and on all occasions magnified the perils of a Congo voyage. He declared that every quarter of the moon produced a tempest; that the shores were girt with inhospitable rocks; that the inhabitants were cannibals, and that the only vessels which could live in the waters of the torrid zone were caravels of Portuguese build. Suspecting that three sailors who had left Portugal for Spain intended to sell the secret to the foreign king, he ordered them to be pursued and taken. Two were killed, and the third was broken upon the wheel. "Let every man abide in his element:" said John; "I am not partial to travelling seamen."

We now approach an era of great achievements. John determined, in 1486, to assist the attempts made on sea by journeys over land. Accordingly a squadron was fitted out under Bartholomew Diaz, one of the officers of the royal household, while Pedro de Covillam and Alphonso de Payra, both well versed in Arabic, received the following order respecting a land journey:—"To discover the country of Prester John, the King of Abyssinia, to trace the Venetian commerce in drugs and spices to its source, and to ascertain whether it were possible for ships to sail round the extremity of Africa to India." They went by way of Naples, the Island of Rhodes, Alexandria, and Cairo, to Aden in Arabia. Here they separated, Covillam proceeding to Cananor and Goa, upon the Malabar coast of Hindostan, and being the first Portuguese that ever saw India. He went from there to Sofala, on the eastern coast of Africa, and saw the Island of the Moon, now Madagascar. He penetrated to the court of Prester John, the King of Abyssinia, and became so necessary to the happiness of that potentate, that he was compelled to live and die in his dominions. An embassy sent by Prester John to Lisbon made the Portuguese acquainted with Covillam's adventures. Long ere this, however, Bartholomew Diaz had sailed upon the voyage which has immortalized his name. He received the command of a fleet, consisting of two ships of fifty tons each, and of a tender to carry provisions, and set sail towards the end of August, 1486, steering directly to the south. It is much to be regretted that so few details exist in reference to this memorable expedition. We know little more than the fact that the first stone pillar which Diaz erected was placed four hundred miles beyond that of any preceding navigator. Striking out boldly here into the open sea, he resolved to make a wide circuit before returning landward. He did so; and the first land he saw, on again touching the continent, lay one hundred miles to the eastward of the great southern cape, which he had passed without seeing it. Ignorant of this, he still kept on, amazed that the land should now trend to the east and finally to the north. Alarmed, and nearly destitute of provisions, mortified at the failure of his enterprise, Diaz unwillingly put back. What was his joy and surprise when the tremendous and long-sought promontory—the object of the hopes and desires of the Portuguese for seventy-five years, and which, either from the distance or the haze, had before been concealed—now burst upon his view!

Diaz returned to Portugal in December, 1487, and, in his narrative to the king, stated that he had given to the formidable promontory he had doubled the name of "Cape of Tempests." But the king, animated by the conviction that Portugal would now reap the abundant harvest prepared by this cheering event, thought he could suggest a more appropriate appellation. The Portuguese poet, Camoens, thus alludes to this circumstance:

"At Lisboa's court they told their dread escape,
And from her raging tempests named the Cape.
'Thou southmost point,' the joyful king exclaimed,
'Cape of Good Hope be thou forever named!'"

Successful and triumphant as was this voyage of Diaz, it eventually tended to injure the interests of Portugal, inasmuch as it withdrew the regards of King John from other and important plans of discovery, and rendered him inattentive to the efforts of rival powers upon the ocean. It caused him, amid the intoxication of the moment, to refuse the services and reject the science of one who now offered to conduct the vessels of Portugal to the Indies by an untried route. It caused him, as we shall soon have occasion to narrate, to turn a deaf ear to the proposals of Columbus, who had humbly brought to Lisbon the mighty scheme with which he had been contemptuously repulsed from Genoa. We have arrived at the Great Era in Navigation,—the age of Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan.