the first attempts to find an oceanic route from
Europe to Asia. Then, as in other great epochs of history, men of genius
arose to meet the occasion. In 1394 was born Prince Henry of Portugal,
since known as Henry the Navigator.[378] He was fourth son of King John
I., the valiant and prudent king under whom began the golden age of
Portugal, which lasted until the conquest of that country in 1580 by
Philip II. of Spain. Henry's mother was Philippa, daughter of John of
Gaunt. He was therefore cousin to our own Henry V. of England, whom he
quite equalled in genius, while the laurels that he won were more
glorious than those of Agincourt. In 1415, being then in his
twenty-first year, Prince Henry played a distinguished part in the
expedition which captured Ceuta from the Moors. While in Morocco he
gathered such information as he could concerning the interior of the
continent; he learned something about the oases of Sahara, the distant
river Gambia, and the caravan trade between Tunis and Timbuctoo, whereby
gold was carried from the Guinea coast to Mussulman ports on the
Mediterranean. If this coast could be reached by sea, its gold might be
brought to Lisbon as well. To divert such treasure from the infidel and
secure it for a Christian nation was an enterprise fitted to kindle a
prince's enthusiasm. While Henry felt the full force of these
considerations, his thoughts took a wider range. The views of Pomponius
Mela had always been held in high esteem by scholars of the Spanish
peninsula,[379] and down past that Gold Coast Prince Henry saw the
ocean route to the Indies, the road whereby a vast empire might be won
for Portugal and millions of wandering heathen souls might be gathered
into the fold of Christ. To doubt the sincerity of the latter motive, or
to belittle its influence, would be to do injustice to Prince
Henry,--such cynical injustice as our hard-headed age is only too apt to
mete out to that romantic time and the fresh enthusiasm which inspired
its heroic performances. Prince Henry was earnest, conscientious,
large-minded, and in the best sense devout; and there can be no question
that in his mind, as in that of Columbus, and (with somewhat more alloy)
in the minds of Cortes and others, the desire of converting the heathen
and strengthening the Church served as a most powerful incentive to the
actions which in the course of little more than a century quite changed
the face of the world.

[Footnote 378: