declared she would approve all
possible torture to men's bodies, when necessary in order to save their
souls.

If such were the women of Spain, what was to be expected of the men? How
could even Ferdinand, "the Wise," keep them employed now that there
were no longer Moors to fight against? Uprisings, rebellions, began to
threaten Spain with such desolation as England had endured. But a higher
Providence solved for Ferdinand his impossible problem: the age of
maritime discovery began.[15]

THE ERA OF DISCOVERY

The Portuguese from their Atlantic seaboard had already begun to explore
southward along the African coast. In 1402 they had settled the Canary
Isles. In 1443 they reached southward beyond the sands of the Sahara and
saw Cape Verd, discovered that Africa was not all burning desert,
that heat would not forever increase as they went southward. In 1487
Bartholomew Diaz, after almost a year of sailing, reached the Cape of
Good Hope, the southern point of the vast African continent; and in 1497
Vasco da Gama rounded the cape and sailed on to India[16]. He had found a
way of bringing Indian spices, silks, and jewels to Europe, bringing them
in quantities and without paying tribute to the Turks, without crossing
the deadly deserts of Arabia. He had made his little country wealthy.

Meanwhile, stimulated by Portuguese success, the mariners of other
nations began to brave the giant storms of the Atlantic. The Turks had
made trade with the far East wellnigh impossible. Portugal was not the
only land to seek a sea-route to India. Venice and Genoa saw before them
the threat of ruin to their most profitable commerce. So we may even say
that it was the Turks who set the Genoese captain Columbus to planning
his great voyage; it was the conquest of the Moors that set Isabella free
to listen to him, and offer her crown jewels for the expedition which
should convert other heathen, establish other inquisitions; and it was
the downfall of the Moors which left the Spanish warriors so eager to
throng to adventure and warfare in the West, once Columbus had shown the
way.

For a time the theatre of great events shifts to the new continent.
The Portuguese explorers had doubled the size of the known world. The
Spaniards doubled it again. But the credit must not be given wholly
to Spain. Though it was the liberality of her monarchs which had made
discovery possible, and though it was the daring of her warriors that
laughed at danger a