probable that, Norman voyagers found their way to the West African coast at a very early period. In 1402 Jean de Béthencourt sailed from La Rochelle and established a settlement on Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands. During the next three years he extended his sway over the natives of the neighboring islands. Although his expedition is sometimes spoken of as the beginning of modern African discovery, the accounts of it show conclusively that the islands were already comparatively well known. Indeed, Béthencourt seems to have started with some sort of a grant from the King of Castile. Long before, in 1344, the Pope had granted the islands to a scion of the royal house of Castile, Don Luis de la Cerda, who had taken the title of Prince of Fortune, i.e., of the Fortunate Islands. This same year, 1344, is given as the date for the discovery of Madeira. In that year, so the tale goes, a young Englishman, Robert Machin, eloped with Anne d'Arfet, or Dorset, a woman of noble birth, and sailed away with her for France, but contrary winds carried them to the island of Madeira. There the lovers died; but one of the company returned to Portugal, and the report of his adventures served to guide the captains of Prince Henry, who rediscovered the island in 1419.
The real opening of Africa to the knowledge of the modern world began with Prince Henry of Portugal (q.v.), called the Navigator. In 1415 he participated in the victorious campaign of Portugal against the Moorish citadel of Ceuta and his interest was awakened by the enigma of the unknown continent. On his return he devoted himself to the task of sending expedition after expedition down the African coast to determine the extent of the continent, and to find, if possible, a way to the east around it. These expeditions crept further and further southward. In 1445 an exploring party started from the mouth of the Rio d'Ouro and spent seven months in the interior. Gil Eannes passed beyond Cape Bojador, the “bulging cape,” off which the Atlantic currents ran so strong as to bar all previous attempts at progress. In 1441 a vessel brought back some Moorish captives; a year later two of these captives were exchanged for ten negro slaves and some gold dust—and the demoralizing trade which was to characterize West Africa for nearly four centuries was fairly begun. The Bay of Arguin was reached in 1443, and the next year a syndicate, or company, the first of the many that have exploited the Slave Coast, was organized at Lagos. In 1445 Diniz Dias passed the mouth of the Senegal, discovered Cape Verde, and returned to Portugal with four negroes taken from their own country, previous importations having been secured by exchange with the Moors. The next year Nuño Tristão reached the Gambia, where he was killed, with most of his followers, by the natives. Ten years later, 1455 and 1456, Cada Mosto (q.v.) explored the river and discovered the Cape Verde Islands. The impulse given to exploration by Prince Henry continued after his death, which occurred in 1460. Pedro de Cintra, in 1462, added the coast as far as Sierra Leone and Cape Mesurado to the Portuguese claims. In 1471 Santarem and Escobar carried the Portuguese flag across the equator. Commerce, meanwhile, was familiarizing pilots and the makers of sailing charts with the details of the coast. The search for new centres of profitable trade went on, and in 1484 Diego Cam passed the Congo and heard from the natives tales which seemed to confirm the old story of Prester John (q.v.), a Christian king ruling somewhere beyond the wall of Mohammedanism with which Europe was surrounded. It has been supposed by some that the King of Abyssinia was the subject of this legend. The Portuguese king determined to communicate with this unknown Christian brother, and in July, 1487, sent Bartholomeu Dias (q.v.) with two ships of some fifty tons and a smaller tender to carry his message. From the Congo, Dias beat down to Cape Voltas, near the mouth of the Orange River. Thence he was driven by storm southward for thirteen days, after which he steered north and east in the hope of regaining land. He sighted the southern coast of Africa, near the Gouritz River, at Vleesch Bay. Keeping on toward the east, he landed on an island in Algoa Bay, still known as Santa Cruz, or St. Croix, from the cross which he set up there. When he reached the mouth of the Great Fish River, long the boundary of Cape Colony, the patience of his crews gave out and they forced him to put about for home. On the return journey he sighted, first of modern sailors, the great landmark which has appropriated the generic name of The Cape. Dias christened it the Stormy Cape (Cabo Tormentoso), but on his return in December, 1488, the King (or, according to Christopher Columbus, Dias himself) gave it the more cheering name of the Cape of Good Hope.
While Dias was rounding the Cape, the King, fearing lest his vessels might fail to reach Prester John, sent another message to that potentate, overland, by Pedro de Covilhão and Alfonso de Payva. From Aden, in Arabia, Payva made his way to Abyssinia, where he was killed, while Covilhão went eastward to India. From Goa Covilhão sailed to Sofala, in Eastern Africa, where he gathered news of Madagascar, and satisfied himself that it would be possible to go around to the western side of Africa by water. His report reached Portugal in 1490, but it was seven years before Vasco da Gama (q.v.) proved its correctness, in November, 1497. Starting from Lisbon, he doubled the Cape, and after encountering storm and tempest and the southern sweep of the Mozambique current, sighted, on Christmas Day, 1497, the land which still bears the name he gave it in honor of the day—Natal. After touching at Mozambique and Mombasa, he arrived on Easter at Melinda, where he found a pilot who took him across to India. The land was sighted on May 17, 1498, and three days later Da Gama anchored off Calicut.
Modern Exploration. Thus far the Portuguese had been almost alone in the exploration of Africa, but in the second half of the eighteenth century a new era of discovery began—an era in which men of several nationalities have had a share, and by the results of which several nations have sought to profit. The new line of explorers is headed by James Bruce (q.v.), a Scotchman who had been British consul at Algiers from 1763 to 1765. While in Egypt in 1768 he conceived the plan of seeking for the sources of the Nile. After crossing the Red Sea to Jiddah, he entered Abyssinia by the way of Massowah, and proceeded to Gondar, where he won the favor of the Negus. After some delay he succeeded in reaching the headwaters of the Blue Nile, and believed that he had found the true source of the main river. He arrived in
