o include the
Indies.[387] The request found favour in the eyes of Eugenius, and the
grant was solemnly confirmed by succeeding popes. To these proceedings
we shall again have occasion to refer. We have here to observe that the
discovery of gold and the profits of the slave-trade--though it was as
yet conducted upon a very small scale--served to increase the interest
of the Portuguese people in Prince Henry's work and to diminish the
obstacles in his way. A succession of gallant captains, whose names make
a glorious roll of honour, carried on the work of exploration, reaching
the farthest point that had been attained by the ancients. In 1445 Dinis
Fernandez passed Cape Verde, and two years later Lancarote found the
mouth of the Gambia. In 1456 Luigi Cadamosto--a Venetian captain in the
service of Portugal--went as far as the Rio Grande; in 1460 Diego Gomez
discovered the Cape Verde islands; and in 1462 Piedro de Cintra reached
Sierra Leone.[388] At the same time, in various expeditions between 1431
and 1466, the Azores (i. e. "Hawk" islands) were rediscovered and
colonized, and voyages out into the Sea of Darkness began to lose
something of their manifold terrors.

[Footnote 386: See below, vol. ii. pp. 429-431.]

[Footnote 387: "En el ano de 1442, viendo el Infante que se
habia pasado el cabo del Boxador y que la tierra iba muy
adelante, y que todos los navios que inviaba traian muchos
esclavos moros, con que pagaba los gastos que hacia y que cada
dia crecia mas el provecho y se prosperaba su amada
negociacion, determino de inviar a suplicar al Papa Martino V.,
... que hiciese gracia a la Corona real de Portogal de los
reinos y senorios que habia y hobiese desde el cabo del Boxador
adelante, hacia el Oriente y la India inclusive; y ansi se las
concedio, ... con todas las tierras, puertos, islas, tratos,
rescates, pesquerias y cosas a esto pertenecientes, poniendo
censuras y penas a todos los reyes cristianos, principes, y
senores y comunidades que a esto le perturbasen; despues,
dicen, que los sumos pontifices, sucesores de Martino, como
Eugenio IV. y Nicolas V. y Calixto IV. lo confirmaron." Las
Casas, _Hist. de las Indias_, tom. i. p. 185. The name of
Martin V. is a slip of the memory on the part of Las Casas.
That pope had died of apoplexy eleven