For the rest of his life, which lasted wellnigh half a century more, since he did not die until 1460, he commanded from Sagres the great offensive against the unknown seas.

Perhaps we shall never know what gave this bold dreamer the courage to defy the greatest geographical authorities of his time, to disbelieve the contention of Ptolemy and those who accepted Ptolemy's dictum as incontrovertible, that Africa was a continent extending to the South Pole, Still, we can guess why Prince Henry the Navigator believed it would be possible to sail round Africa into the Indian Ocean, There had always been a rumour, recorded by Herodotus among others, that in the time of the Pharaohs a Phoenician fleet journeyed southward down the Red Sea and, two years later, unexpectedly returned by way of the Pillars of Hercules. It is possible, too, that the Infante had learned from Moorish slave-traders how, beyond Libya Deserta, beyond the sands of the Sahara, was a land of wealth, termed by the Moors "bilat ghana." There is still extant a map prepared in the year 1150 for Roger II, the Norman king of Sicily, by an Arabian cosmographer in which the region we now call Guinea is correctly inscribed under the designation of "bilat ghana (The modern name "guinea," both the place and the coin, is probably derived from this Moorish word "ghana," wealth.) Furthermore, it is likely that Prince Henry was better informed than the traditional geographers of his day, who swore by Ptolemy and therefore rejected the writings of Marco Polo and his Arab contemporary Ibn Battuta as "travellers' tales."

The essential greatness of Prince Henry the Navigator lies in this, that, knowing the vastness of his aims, he knew also the difficulty of attaining them; that he was resigned to the belief it would be impossible for him to see their realization, since the preparation for fulfilment would need more than one generation. How would it be possible to undertake a voyage from Portugal to the Indies without a knowledge of the seas that would have to be traversed, and without ships for the journey ? At the time when Prince Henry set to work, both the geographical and the nautical knowledge of Europe were absurdly primitive. In the Dark Ages which followed the break-up of the West Roman Empire, the cosmography of the Greeks, the Phoenicians, and the Latins had been forgotten. It seemed incredible and to belong to the domain of fable that Alexander had once reached the frontiers of Afghanistan and advanced far into India. Lost were the excellent maps of the Romans; ruined were their military roads, extending into Britain in the North-West and Bithynia in the South-East; vanished was the facility of travel; destroyed was their excellent news-service, which had been geographical as well as political; dead the lust for discovery; pitifully decayed the art of navigation. Lacking bold and distant aims, without compasses or charts, little ships hugged the coast from port to port, in perpetual terror of storms or no less dangerous pirates. Such was the wretched condition of cosmography and so small were the ships, that the conquest of the ocean and of overseas lands seemed out of the question—and this can only enhance the greatness of Prince Henry the Navigator. A generation of labour and sacrifice was requisite to compensate for the neglect of centuries. Prince Henry was determined to devote the whole of his life to the task.

Nothing more than a few ruined walls remains of the castle at Sagres built by Prince Henry and shattered by Sir Francis Drake, the heir of his discoveries. Through the mists of legend it is difficult, at this date, to discern in what fashion Prince Henry elaborated his plans of world conquest for Portugal According to the accounts of Portuguese chroniclers, which may be in great measure romantic, he collected books and maps from all quarters of the world, summoned Arabian and Jewish sages, and commanded them to prepare better instruments and charts. Every ship's captain who put into the port was questioned; what information could be gathered was recorded and tabulated; and numerous expeditions were equipped. The art of shipbuilding was greatly improved. Within a few years, the primitive "barcas," small undecked fishing-smacks to carry eighteen men, had grown into "naos," broad-beamed cutters with a draught ranging from eighty to one hundred tons, which could keep afloat on the open sea even in bad weather. These new and more seaworthy boats needed a new type of captain. Associated with the captain was a "master of astronomy," a navigating expert, who could understand the sailing directions, and could make such rough determinations of latitude and longitude as were then possible. Gradually, by theoretical and practical training, those who had been mere fishermen were systematically transformed into navigators and discoverers. Even as King Philip of Macedon bequeathed to his son Alexander the irresistible phalanx with which Alexander conquered the world, so did Prince Henry the Navigator bequeath to Portugal the best and most modern ships of his time, and the excellent seamen who were to conquer the ocean.

It is, however, a part of the tragic fate of forerunners that they should die without catching more than a distant glimpse of the Promised Land. Prince Henry the Navigator did not survive to see any one of the great discoveries that were to make his country memorable in the history of geographical discovery. When he died at Sagres, on November 13, 1460, scarcely anything of geographical importance had been achieved. The widely trumpeted discovery of the Azores and of Madeira was only a rediscovery, for the existence of the islands was known to Laurentino in 1351. The new "naos" had timidly sailed down the west coast of Africa, but in the course of half a century they had not yet reached the Equator. A petty trade had begun, partly in white ivory and still more in what was called "black ivory" —the latter term meaning that raids were made on the coast of Senegal to carry off Negroes for sale in the Lisbon slave-market. A little gold, too, was brought back from Africa. Such were the inglorious results of Henry's glorious dreams.

Nevertheless, a decisive success had already been achieved. The immense gain to Portuguese navigation lay, not in the distance covered, but in the moral sphere: in the increasing spirit of enterprise, and in the destruction of a paralyzing legend. For centuries mariners had whispered one to another that there was a place on the West African coast beyond which it was impossible to sail. On the farther side of this began "Cape Non," "the green sea of darkness," and destruction awaited the ship that dared venture into these perilous regions.

What would happen there ? The boiling waters would melt the pitch and oakum out of the seams; planks and sails would catch fire in the scorching sun; every Christian who tried to enter the "land of Satan," which was as hot as the crater of a volcano, would be burned as black as a Negro. Thanks to this fable, so overwhelming was the dread of any voyage along the African coast that the Pope, to enable Prince Henry to secure seamen for his first expeditions, had to give every man jack of them a preliminary absolution. Thus only did it become possible to secure a few resolutes for the initial voyages of discovery.

What a triumph it was, therefore, when Gil Yanez first rounded the reputedly impassable Cape Non, and came back to report of Guinea that the famous Ptolemy had been proved a humbug, "for it is as easy to sail on this coast as on our own, while the country is extraordinarily rich and beautiful." The dead point had been passed.