th coast of Guinea, on January 19, 1482, after a year spent in fort
building and treaty making with the natives of north-west Africa. Fort
and church at La Mina were finished in twenty days, and Azambuga sent
back his ships with a great cargo in slaves and gold, but without any
news of fresh discovery. John was not disposed to be content with this.
In 1484, Diego Cam was ordered to go as far to the south as he could,
and not to "wait anywhere for other matters." He passed Cape St.
Catherine, just beyond the Line, which since 1475 had been the limit of
knowledge, and continuing south, reached the mighty river Congo, called
by the natives Zaire, and now known as the second of African rivers, the
true counterpart of that western Nile, which every geographer since
Ptolemy had reproduced and which, in the Senegal, the Gambia, and the
Niger, the Portuguese had again and again sought to find their
explanation.

Cam, by agreement with the natives, took back four hostages to act as
interpreters and next year returned to and passed the Congo, and sailed
two hundred leagues beyond, to the site of the modern Walvisch Bay
(1485).

Here, as the coast seemed to stretch interminably south, though he had
now really passed quite nine-tenths of the distance to the southern
Cape, Cam turned back to the Congo, where he persuaded the King and
people to profess themselves Christians and allies of Portugal. Already,
in 1484, a native embassy to King John had brought such an account of an
inland prince, one Ogane, a Christian at heart, that all the Court of
Lisbon thought he must be the long lost Prester John, and the Portuguese
monarch, all on fire with this hope, sent out at once in search of this
"great Catholic lord," by sea and land.

Bartholomew Diaz sailed in August, 1486, with two ships, first to search
for the Prester, and then to explore as much new land and sea as he
could find within his reach. Two envoys, Covilham and Payva, were sent
on the same errand, by way of Jerusalem, Arabia, and Egypt; another
expedition was sent to ascend the Senegal to its junction with the Nile;
a fourth party started to find the way to Cathay by the North-east
passage.

Camoens has sung of the travels of Covilham, who first saw cloves and
cinnamon, pepper and ginger, and who pined away in a state of
confinement at the Prester's Abyssinian Court, but the voyage of Diaz
hardly finds a place in the _Lusiads_ and the very name of the
discoverer is gene