When we consider all the wondrous achievements on the part of the Ancients, when we consider how many centuries they were engaged in maritime matters, it is a matter for some surprise that, with the exception of what was done by the Phœnicians, there was practically no maritime discovery made by them. They were content with the limitations of the Mediterranean, and beyond the Gaditan Straits they did not venture.

At first sight it certainly is a little strange. But the reason is quite obvious. Their seamanship was good enough, but their navigation was of an inferior order. The Romans, for example, were not geographers, and without some knowledge of geography even the crudest navigational methods lose their value. Among the Greeks and Romans there existed curious and uncertain ideas concerning the earth. Some thought that it floated on the water like a bowl. Some believed that it was like to a column or stone pillar; others that it was hollow as a dish. Some said it was as flat as a table; some that its shape was similar to a drum. So with all these conflicting ideas there was no accurate knowledge of the world.

Further, though there were astronomers, yet they were incompetent and of little value from a practical point of view. Lastly, the ancients had yet to learn the essential value of the loadstone. Hence their mariners were not fitted for such long voyages as were to be made later on by the Portuguese. The early Mediterranean mariners were efficient so long as they kept within the confines of their own enormous lake, for their voyaging was practically coastal. Even when they had to sail North and South they had such places as Rhodes to enable them to break their journey and make a good departure from. They could never lose themselves for long, for they knew the aspect of the various promontories and bays. They could “smell” their way through most channels even when the light failed them. And remember, too, that theirs were not big ships if compared with the caravels which were to come later. There were plenty of oarsmen in the warships if it became necessary to claw off a lee shore, and these shallow-draught vessels could float in the most shallow channels.

But if they had been called upon to cross the Atlantic or, rounding the South of Africa, traverse the Indian Ocean, they would have soon lost themselves when out of sight of land for many days; so they kept to their own sea and left the discovering of the world to others who should come centuries later. Hipparchus had been the first to make a catalogue of the stars about the year 150 B.C. Pass over a somewhat barren interval till you come to the year A.D. 150 and you find Ptolemy correcting the tables of Hipparchus. In Ptolemy we have the summit of classical knowledge as reached during the times of the ancients. His account of the universe and the movements of the heavenly bodies had a great influence on the seafarers in the Middle Ages, and so on the world’s discoveries. Now Ptolemy’s geography was based for the most part on “itineraries.” These, in modern parlance, were simply guide-books for travellers: that is to say, they consisted of tables and routes showing the stopping-places. Such data as these afforded had been obtained for the most part from military campaigns—especially Roman—and from the voyages made by sailors, but also from merchants.

Ptolemy made a wonderful improvement in cartographical representation by introducing correction with converging meridians, this method having been commenced by Hipparchus. But Ptolemy was singularly fortunate to have been living at the time when the Roman Empire was at its height, and so enabled to obtain a mass of geographical details through the extensive administration of this far-reaching dominion.

In Northern Europe the mists had not yet cleared. It was a long time before they did. It is not till the eighth century of our era that there is any certain mention in literature concerning the voyaging to the Arctic Circle. This was when the good monks from Ireland discovered the Faroe Isles and Iceland after setting forth across the sea, and settled down there, baptising the inhabitants and teaching them Christianity. Indirectly, they were doing more than this: they were linking up one portion of world that was unknown to or by the other. Already King Arthur, by his conquest of Scandinavia, Ireland, Gothland, Denmark, and other northern territories, had caused an addition to geographical knowledge by intercommunication. “Now at length,” to quote Hakluyt, “they are incorporated with us by the receiving of our religion and sacraments, and by taking wives of our nation, and by affinitie, and mariages.”

Add to these the northern voyages of Octher, King Edgar, together with the frequent raids of the Norsemen and the increasing number of missionaries, and it is easy to see the world’s geographical knowledge accumulating. But these, again, were mostly coasting voyages; or, at any rate, the voyagers were not out of sight of land for many days. The Norse discoveries are, in fact, the first great achievement of the western maritime world between the time of Constantine and the first Crusade. We have already alluded so fully to their seamanship that it remains only to remind the reader that as early as A.D. 787 they had landed in our country; in 874 had begun to colonise Iceland; in 877 had sighted Greenland; and in 888, or thereabouts, had reached the White Sea. In Southern Europe there was nothing comparable to this. Notwithstanding that the workmanship of the Italian shipbuilders was as good as, if not better than, the work of the Norsemen; notwithstanding, also, that the latter were further away from civilisation and scientific knowledge, yet for all that the Vikings were peering into the Unknown World, while the Southerners were content to leave the curtain to hide a little longer the wonders of the universe from the eyes of mankind.

As we look at the manner in which the world has been opened out, discovered, revealed, linked up, we shall find that this was brought about as follows: The Southerners, then, were too content with their Mediterranean to leave it in quest of other seas, while the Vikings were exactly the reverse in their own sphere. Then comes the influence of Christian devotion. Not merely the missionaries, but the bands of pilgrims begin for the first time in their lives to travel long distances. The Crusades astound the Crusaders themselves. They marvel at the possibilities of the world. A permanent link is forged between the North and the near East. The Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean are accomplished in safety. Why should they not come back again, after their vows have been filled, to trade? They have fought, they have said their prayers. Why might they not buy and sell? Thus there is formed a connection between the Levant and England which time was to develop.

We see, then, the merchants of the world getting restless for greater wealth: anxious for new markets for their wares, new places whence to gather fresh imports. Owing to the natural dread of the sea the land routes were frequently patronised in preference to the sea lanes, though this was not always. Now the great treasure-house of the world in men’s estimation lay in India. There was to be found a rich store of commodities, so thither merchants repaired by the long overland routes. But there was a growing feeling among the Genoese, the Venetians, and the Spanish that there ought to be a sea path to India just as there was to Northern Europe. There was a great risk attached to the present method of bringing goods across from India by land. There was the risk of pilfering or of bandits, besides the great cost of transportation. Furthermore, these sons of the Catholic Church longed to crush the power of Islam, longed to place the ruling of the world in the hands of a Christian Empire. It is necessary to bear in mind this potent desire to find a sea route to India, because by this desire was given an impetus which not only revealed India to seamen, but unfolded the New World in the Western Hemisphere. As far back as the year A.D. 1281, Vivaldi set forth from Genoa in his fruitless endeavour to reach the Indies via the west coast of Africa; so also Malocello had sailed as far as the Canary Isles about the year 1270; and there were numbers of other gallant adventurers who had started forth optimistically. But the sea route to India had not yet been ploughed by the ships of men.

Meanwhile there arrived on the scene the best friend mariner ever had. Up till now the compass had not been used. It is possible and extremely probable that from very early times the Chinese understood the communicating of the magnetic fluid to iron, and the marvellous and mysterious power which that iron possesses when thus magnetised. One may take it that the Chinese introduced this notion to the famous Arabian seamen sailing between the Far East and the east coast of Africa. Thus, via the Red Sea, this information of the utility of the magnetised needle for the use of seamen was brought into Europe. Prior to the tenth century the invention had gone no further than placing a bar of magnetised iron in the arms of a wooden figure on a pivot. In China the South took the place of North, and the former was indicated by the outstretched hand of the little man erected on the prow of the vessel, or by the bar of pulverised iron which the image held like a spear in its hands. With such magnetic indications the Chinese from the third century A.D. voyaged from Canton to Malabar and the Persian Gulf.

By the second decade of the twelfth century the Chinese were using the water-compass. It was not seen in Europe till about the year 1190; or rather it is not mentioned till about that date. What is most probable is the suggestion that the sailors of Northern Europe first saw it at the time of the Crusades, and took back to their own ports the idea which the Arabian dhow skippers had employed for so many years in navigating the Indian Ocean. There is a clear reference in an old French ballad of the late twelfth century to the Pole-star and magnet:—

This ballad was afterwards known as “The Song of the Compass.” Doubtless this crude compass was used only when the sailors could not see the sun in cloudy weather, or it may have been also used when making night passages. It certainly cannot have been more than a frail aid in stormy weather, when these clumsy ships were pitching and rolling in the trough of the sea. Still, excepting this innovation, there is not between the time of the ancient Greeks and that of the fourteenth century more than the slightest advance in the seaman’s art. Frankly, they hardly needed the compass in their coasting voyages, and when its utility was demonstrated they declined, for a long time, to put to sea in any ship having such an infernal and superstitious article on board. Although the date 1190 has just been given as the approximate period when the lodestone was employed in European navigation, yet it was not till the beginning of the fourteenth century that a Neapolitan pilot suspended the needle on a fixed pivot in a box, though some authorities deny that this man accomplished so much. The origin of the fleur-de-lys, which the reader still sees on every compass card to this day—flower-de-luce, as the rude Elizabethan sailors used to call it—is variously attributed to the fact that this pilot was a subject of the King of Naples, who was of the junior branch of the Bourbon family. Or it is possibly a conventional representation of the dart which the Arabians called the needle.

Let us then sum up. Thanks to the Vikings and Crusaders, the warriors and the traders, there was a greater knowledge of the world’s geography. And now also men had the instrument which would enable them to find their way across trackless oceans and reach home again in safety. Concerning those places which they had never seen, they had much hopeful curiosity, but there was little actual information. All the time the East was calling in its magical way to the European adventurers. The land travellers of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries had drawn back the veil hiding the golden harvest of the East. Those who had been and seen related such wondrous yarns that men of action and ambition longed to be away thither at once. The effect of the Crusades had not yet passed away. The desire for travel which has spread so enormously till it has reached the present-day obsession was growing rapidly.

Understand, that since the time when those Phœnicians circumnavigated the Continent there had been no repetition of this achievement, and in fact no serious attempts. In 1270 Malocello had found the Canaries. Ten or twenty years later the Genoese had made some sort of effort to find a sea route to India, but they only reached Gozora in Barbary. Various other explorers also found their way to the islands of the Atlantic adjacent to the West African coast. In the history of exploration there are plenty of instances where one man in a certain century has discovered a new region. Many years later, after this has been forgotten, some other explorer lands on this territory and claims to have been there first. In other instances the secret of the first adventurer has been well kept and well utilised by those who lived long after the first man had died.

Take Madeira as a case in point. This was discovered not by a Genoese, a Venetian, or a Portuguese, but by an Englishman of the name of Macham. He eloped from England with a certain lady, went on board his ship, reached Spain, and then arrived “by tempest” in Madeira, “and did cast anker in that haven or bay, which now is called Machico after the name of Macham. And because his lover was sea-sicke, he went on land with some of his company, and the shippe with a good winde made saile away, and the woman died for thought.” This was about the year 1344. For years after, Madeira remained unknown to men’s minds. But Prince Henry the Navigator knew of the Macham incident, and he put it to good use.

It is true that before the close of the Middle Ages the tendency of the Italian seamen-traders was to emerge from the limits of their Mediterranean Sea. The voyages to the Canaries and to Barbary are instances of this growing enterprise. They had for years established an overseas trade also with Northern Europe, and every year the Venetians made a voyage to Flanders and back. We have not space to deal in detail with the voyage of the two Venetian brothers Zeno to Greenland in the fourteenth century, though the record is still in existence for those who wish to read.

But still, in spite of the voyages of Viking and Venetian, the Crusading expeditions, and the enterprising travels which had been undertaken, yet the real progress in navigation, as a science and an art, was made not by the sailors of Christendom, but by the Arabians. The latter had calculated their tables of latitude and longitude by astronomical observations. They had produced rough coast-charts; and what was more, they had been using the compass and other nautical instruments for some time. But thanks to the travel craze which had set in, the Christian ships which were seen in the Mediterranean about the beginning of the fifteenth century were supplied with the compass, an astrolabe, a timepiece, and charts just as you would have found on board an Arabian trading to the Indian Ocean. At length the Christian seamen overcame their prejudice, and were glad to avail themselves of the magnetised needle; but its use was by no means universal.

Bear in mind, also, the wave of the New Learning that was spreading over Europe. Mathematics and astronomy had already begun to be studied in Portugal at the beginning of the fourteenth century. And with regard to cartography, or map-making, something new was happening. Already by 1306 a Venetian map had been made which put into form the ideas which inspired the first Italian voyages in the Atlantic. These charts were made for the purpose of recording the discoveries of the great contemporary seamen. It is indeed surprising to note how accurate these charts really are. The Italians with all their artistic ability were now the great map-makers, and they managed to produce a number of portolani which were of the greatest use to the mariners and merchants of the Mediterranean. These were made by means of the knowledge and assistance of seamen, and were intended to be of service to the latter in their navigation.

A portolano was nothing more or less than a plan or map-sketch. That which is here given is from a reproduction in the Map Room of the British Museum. When we consider that this was made as far back as the year 1351, or one hundred and thirty-five years before the Cape of Good Hope was rounded, it is wonderfully accurate, and the shape given to Southern Africa is a curiously clever guess. But it should be remembered that though the continent had never been rounded (except in Phœnician times), yet there was a vague idea of the probable shape of the west coast from those who had been to Barbary; and it is most probable that by the information received from the Arabs, who knew the East African coast intimately, this side of the continent would be described to them. Thus a not wholly incorrect idea was conveyed of the shape of the whole of Africa’s coast-line.

But if we examine the configuration of the portions depicted as being in Europe, notably the northern shores of the Mediterranean, this portolano is most pleasing and accurate, and cannot have failed to have saved the skippers of that time many an anxious moment. That which is here reproduced dates from the year 1351, but portolani were in use as far back as the twelfth century as practical guides to seamen. The next improvement occurred when the compass began to be used in the Mediterranean, and so the portolani began to be drawn with this aid. Gradually, with practice, they were beautifully finished, and contained practically no large error or any wrong proportion, while the mariner had very full details given him regarding the coastlines, rivers, mouths, headlands, bays, and so on.

But everything that we have written in this chapter has been leading up to a consideration of the most important epoch in the whole history of seamanship or navigation. It is necessary to have in mind that south-west extremity of Portugal which is now so well known to students of naval history as Cape St. Vincent. On this strip of territory were to dwell a community that would, so to speak, dictate the maritime policy of the world. Here was to be the finest naval college which ever existed even to this day. Here were brought together the pick of the world’s seamen and navigators of that time. From here were to issue both great explorers and the influence which caused all those other navigators to open up the world as a man opens a closed book. To this day civilisation has not realised one tithe of what it and the seafaring nations especially owe in respect of shipbuilding, navigation, and overseas commerce to that small stretch situated at the end of the Spanish peninsula. The success which followed was the result of a wonderful personality. It was the triumph of a man who possessed in one combination the gifts of a far-seeing imagination, a scholarly mind, and a genius for organisation allied to a passion for the sea and the finding of new lands.

This man was Prince Henry, the third son of King John I of Portugal and nephew of Henry IV of England. His life is the old story of a man who wishes to do good work, and in order to bring out the best which is in him, finds it essential to retire from the world. Just as the monastic finds it desirable to withdraw from the hurly-burly of his age; just as the scientist in search of some new invention applies himself to no other study and lets every other consideration slide, so Prince Henry the Navigator, as he came to be called, thrust aside the attractions of Court life and wedded himself to a work which has benefited humanity to an extent that it does not yet and perhaps never will appreciate. It is not too much to say that it is entirely owing to Prince Henry’s influence that ships now sail backwards and forwards to India, South Africa, America, Australia, and elsewhere. If only people understood half they owed to this man they would commemorate his name in every important seaport of the world.

By nature a student and seaman, he retired (as his biographer, Mr. Raymond Beazley, appositely remarks) “more and more from the known world that he might open up the unknown.” That exactly sums up his life. In olden times, what is now called Cape St. Vincent was known as the Holy Promontory. Just to the right of this comes Sagres, and a little further east is Lagos. In the year 1415 Prince Henry settles at Sagres, a cold, barren, dreary, inhospitable promontory, but one singularly suitable for quiet study and research, with the whole extent of the Atlantic to look out upon, and the fresh sea breezes to invigorate the mind away from the insincerities of civilised life. The fifteenth century has always been regarded as the last of the “Dark Ages,” but few more wonderful things happened either then or after than the activities which emanated from the Sagres community. For here the Prince had brought and sifted all the geographical knowledge inherited from the ancients. Here were studied the subjects of mathematics, navigation, cartography in a manner and on such a scale as had never before been attempted. From Italy and Spain were sent the practical men—the boldest and most experienced seamen and navigators that could be found.

Sagres was a kind of international bureau created for the future development of the world, but especially and primarily it had for its object the reaching of India. Henry’s countrymen who had been about over the continent of Europe had encountered in the markets of Bruges and London travellers and merchants from other parts of the world, and in course of conversation managed to pick up a good deal of information regarding the overland trade to India and the Far East. Henry’s chief-of-staff was his own brother Pedro, who also had travelled extensively and had visited all the countries in the west of Europe. He, too, had come back not empty-handed, but with maps and plans, books and much verbal information regarding the places visited. All this information went to swell the general geographical knowledge which Henry was accumulating and systematising.

Close to Sagres was the naval arsenal of Lagos, over which the Prince was governor. Here he built those caravels which were to carry out the theories that he had worked out for his captains. On their return he set to work to sift the data which his ships and men had brought back with them, to correct the maps according to this new information, to readjust the instruments, to compare the accounts of travellers ancient and modern, and then to hand the conclusions of all these to the captains of the next ships that went forth to explore. Thus the Sagres naval college was at once highly theoretical and highly practical. It was also founded on a strong religious basis. Besides the palace, observatory, and study which he built for himself, Henry had erected a chapel, a village for his helpers, and among the instructions to those whom he sent out to explore was the admonition to bring Christianity into all new territory. Here were men engaged in teaching navigation to seamen; here were others instructing pupils how to draw maps and nautical instruments. Even Arabians and Jews were imported to give the Portuguese the benefit of their learning in astronomical and mathematical subjects. It was indeed a cosmopolitan crowd which collected at this Atlantic village. Orientals and Portuguese, veteran pilots from Italy, shipbuilders, seamen, and students of all kinds, cartographers and instrument-makers. But they were assembled there for one purpose. Led by the example and patience and single-hearted enthusiasm of their governor, who guided their labours with prudence and forethought, this little band was to be the nucleus which should form that magnificent race of Portuguese seamen who were to achieve so much during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

We cannot but admire Prince Henry for his admirable enthusiasm, for his patience, his wisdom, and his solid hard work. Nevertheless we respect him possibly even more for having begun at the right end. Instead of sending out his fleets to blunder their way along, they set forth more adequately fitted both as to ships and men than any which had ever put to sea since the beginning of the world. In the schools of Sagres, the shipyards of Lagos, and the voyages of Prince Henry’s ships, we have one of the finest combinations of theory and practice which the mind of man could ever devise. It must indeed have been a most fascinating institution. From this school graduated a fearless race of sailors, who for their daring and enterprise have never been surpassed either in Elizabethan or Nelsonian times when we consider the limitations of their equipment.

Here at last, then, the seaman’s art, for the first time in the history of the world, had a chance of being taught properly. From 1415 to 1460, with the exception of brief intervals, Prince Henry remained here doing this splendid work till death released him from his labours. What then was the aim of his life’s labour? What, in fact, were the results which accrued? Let us see first of all his aims.

He wished to find a way round Africa to India partly for the love of the new knowledge itself, just as any scientist shares the world’s delight in having discovered some invaluable invention. But also it would mean greater dominion, and Portugal would add to her distinctive position among the nations of the world. Already at least a century before his time it had been suggested by Raymond Lulli, a famous Majorcan alchemist, who lived from 1235 to 1315, that India might probably be reached by rounding Africa on the west and east, and it is curious how that idea persisted without any apparent reason or justification before it was actually proved to be correct. Secondly, Henry wanted to find out what was the shape of the world, and to put an end to the rival theories which existed. Marco Polo had done something for the southern coast-line of Asia, and the shape of Africa had been fairly guessed by the portolano, as already seen. On the east coast of Africa there were the Arab settlements, and there was a vague sort of knowledge concerning the west coast so far south as Guinea. This information had been obtained through the Sahara caravan trade.

But there was a third reason for Henry’s enterprise. The research work, the education of his seamen, the making of maps, the providing of instruments, the building and fitting out of ships and so forth could not possibly go on without some sort of financial basis. Such a project, however philanthropic, could not be allowed to continue without some means of sustenance. Henry’s idea was to make the overseas trade pay for all of this. There were riches enough in India and elsewhere to cover handsomely the cost of making Portugal a race of sailors, the leader of the world in maritime exploration. The land route across Asia along which were brought such rich commodities of eastern goods alone proved that India was worth aiming at. If only these goods could be brought by water, then not only would delay, pillage, and money be saved, but Portugal would become the owners of the Indian carrying trade, and the richest of the eastern merchants. One cannot emphasise too strongly the fact that in the minds of the people of the Middle Ages India was the prize of the world, the depository of the greatest wealth. India, then, was the inspiration, Sagres the medium by which the countries of the globe outside Europe have been discovered and developed.

And there was another reason. The political power of the Catholic Church was very considerable. A Portuguese seaman was a true son of the Church, whether skipper or deck-hand. Wherever he colonised, wherever he discovered or traded, he was anxious to spread the Catholic religion. He hated Islam, he wanted to add the territory of the world to the great Christian empire. In no heart did such aspirations flourish so strongly as in Prince Henry the Navigator. India was to become not merely the means of encouraging seafaring, but an invaluable possession.

But what were the results of Henry’s great organisation and activities? Indirectly he was the cause of Columbus finding the New World when looking for India in 1492; of Da Gama reaching India in 1498; of Magellan encircling the globe in 1520–2: less directly still to him may be traced the round-the-world voyages of Drake and Anson. To Prince Henry the Navigator may be ascribed at least half the honour in conquering the islands of the Atlantic and the western coast of Africa, the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, the founding of transoceanic empires and magnificent cities. To his genius may be traced the opening up of the Western Hemisphere, and the sea path to India and the Far East, the discovery of Australia, and other voyages embraced within the limits of a century. In fact, but for Henry the Navigator we should have remained for a much longer period ignorant of one-half of the world. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are essentially a sea epoch more than any age in history, and their influence was felt in all subsequent periods even down to the present day. Sagres focussed all the world’s knowledge of the nautical arts, and shed a powerful searchlight which revealed to nations the wonderful possibilities that lay by way of the sea. It led to India and America, to gold mines and rich plantations, to wealth, to prosperity, to power. The seamanship, the navigation, and the shipbuilding in that narrow strip of Portugal were the best which existed anywhere.

Hence Prince Henry’s pupils, even at such a late date in the world’s history, were the first to break through all the superstitious ideas, the ignorance, the myths, and even terror with which the African unknown was regarded. If his own men did not actually reach India, at any rate they prepared the way thither by sailing for two thousand miles to the southward where no other ships and sailors had been before, with the sole exception of the Phœnicians. Thus they went half the way to the Indian peninsula; in fact, we may add, the most important half. For when at last Vasco da Gama had got round the south of Africa from west to east he was in an ocean that had been regularly traversed by Arabian seamen for centuries. But it is not so much the exploits of Henry’s direct pupils which really matter; it is the influence which he began to exert in the fifteenth century and continued to exert even after his death. He created a new school of nautical thought and practice. All maritime progress prior to the fifteenth century leads up to Henry the Navigator: from him radiate all the wondrous improvements which followed after the date when his Sagres school was inaugurated. There is not a man or woman to-day who ought not to feel grateful to this illustrious and able man. The expansion of Christendom, the increase of national wealth, the development of the colonial idea—these are but a few of the achievements which belong to him. From Portugal to Spain the excellent idea spread of carefully instructing the nation’s seamen. It was Charles V who founded a lectureship at Seville on the Art of Navigation. Such authoritative men as Alonso de Chavez, Hieronymo de Chavez, and Roderigo Zamorano are referred to by Hakluyt as among those who, by word of mouth no less than by published treatise, were wont to instruct the Spanish mariners. Not only did Charles V establish a lectureship, but owing to “the rawnesse of his Seamen, and the manifolde shipwracks which they susteyned in passing and repassing betweene Spaine and the West Indies, with an high reach and great foresight, established ... a Pilote Major, for the examination of such as sought to take charge of ships in that voyage.”

Similarly, owing doubtless to this influence, Henry VIII, recognising something of the importance of the naval side of a nation, founded three seamen’s guilds or brotherhoods on apparently somewhat similar lines at Deptford-on-Thames, Kingston-on-Hull, and Newcastle-on-Tyne. The object was that English seamen might become more apt in seamanship and navigation both in peace and war. And following up the same idea, we find his successor, Edward VI, promoting Sebastian Cabot to be Grand Pilot of England.

Before we pass on, it may be advisable to run briefly through the different stages which led to the final opening up of the sea route to India from European ports. The whole project is so intimately bound up with the development of seamanship and navigation, that we cannot well afford to omit this sketch from our purview. It was not by one single effort, but by a series of attempts that the task was performed. The doubling of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama in 1497 was notable not merely in itself—not merely because of the long voyage and the attainment of Africa’s southern cape—but because it showed that that ancient instinct was right: there was a sea route to India for those who had the daring to venture.

In the year 1415 the furthest south reached was Cape Nun, which is at the south-west extremity of Morocco. Three years later, thanks to the secret which Henry possessed of Macham’s early voyage, two of the Prince’s courtiers were able to rediscover Madeira. In 1433 Cape Bojador, which is on the west coast of the Sahara to the south-east of the Canaries, was doubled by Gillianez. Thus these voyagers were gradually getting nearer to the Equator. The doubling of the last-mentioned headland made such an impression on Pope Martin V that His Holiness bestowed on the King of Portugal all that might thereafter be discovered in Africa and India. This concession led to international disputes in later years.

In the year 1441 still more southing was achieved when Gonzales and Tristan reached Cape Blanco on the same West African coast. Three years later and the River Gambia was discovered, and in 1446 the Cape Verde Islands were visited. All this shows the considerable amount of activity which went on during those years when the Prince was at the head of his naval school. We can see, by referring to a map, how steady and persistent was the advance along the west coast of this unknown continent. But then there comes Henry’s death, and there follows a gap in this chain of discoveries. Still, before long this series of southerly voyages was resumed. The aim was ever in the same direction, but the cause of failure is unknown; whether they feared to go too far, whether their provisions ran out, whether their crews were diminished by sickness and death, whether they were not too sure of the condition of their ships one cannot say. Their intention seems to have been to proceed with caution, and possibly they aimed at a more detailed exploration than some of their successors. Perhaps this was owing to the instructions of the Prince.

At any rate, with the invaluable data which they brought back, each expedition made it easier for the next, so that by the year 1470 the Portuguese were able to reach as far south as almost to the Equator, and fourteen years later the Congo River was attained. But, with so much successfully accomplished, the impetus to do very much more became strong, and in 1486 the King of Portugal sent forth two expeditions, having for their object the discovery of an eastern route to India, and also to find if possible the whereabouts of a mysterious personality, Prester John. The latter was not discovered. One of these two expeditions proceeded through Egypt, then down the Red Sea, and so across the Arabian Sea. Its members encountered many a hardship, but they did succeed in making Calicut in the south-west of India. The other expedition was under the leadership of Bartholomew Diaz. It was of no great size, consisting merely of a couple of caravels and one store-ship. This little squadron did not reach India, but made a wonderful advance on all those previous voyages which had never got further south than the Equator and the Congo. Diaz sailed south beyond the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope, and doubled it without knowing it. He coasted for a thousand miles along African shores which had never been seen by European sailors hitherto. And although he was not lucky enough to reach across to India, yet, when he returned, he had the great happiness of realising that he had passed at last that cape which is the southern African extremity. Probably you know the story: how that Diaz, mindful of the bad weather for which this region is famous, had called it the Cape of Torments, and how that the Portuguese king would not suffer this to be the name, but rather that it should be called the Cape of Good Hope, since the discovery was so promising.

And then we come to that ever memorable year of 1497, when all these preliminary voyages sink into insignificance before that of Vasco da Gama, who doubled the cape on November 20, then sailed to the northward, discovered Mozambique, Sofala, and Melinda; and finally, with the help of an Indian pilot, crossed the ocean from Melinda to Calicut in twenty-three days, so that this Vasco da Gama had the supreme honour of being the first seaman in the world’s history, so far as any record has been preserved to us, to make the entire lengthy voyage from Western Europe to the land of the Indian treasure.

With the seamanship and navigation of Columbus we shall proceed to deal presently. Although he comes within the fifteenth century, and his famous voyage was really concerned with a desire to find India, yet it will be more convenient to be able to watch his methods with greater detail in the following chapter. He is the connecting link between the fifteenth-century Henry the Navigator and that wonderful epoch of sixteenth-century seamen. It would not be inaccurate to describe him as the last of the medieval sailors and the first of the moderns. But our present aim is, now that we have seen the wonderful improvement in navigation which had set in, to obtain some idea of the contemporary seamanship in the Middle Ages.

From the coming of the Viking type of craft to the universal adoption of the caravel class of vessel there was but little variation in the kind of seamanship. In the Mediterranean the lateen sail involved a knowledge of fore-and-aft seamanship, but while this was used chiefly on the smaller craft, yet the bigger ships carried a squaresail forward and the lateen aft. This was the beginning of the caravel, which was to develop into a three- and even four-masted ship, with always a lateen at the stern. But in Northern Europe, where the single (square) sail type of ship and the Viking-like hull had continued without intermission and with only slight alterations such as the addition of stern- and fore-castles, the seamanship was practically identical with that of the Norsemen.

In what did this seamanship consist? It was exceedingly simple, and may be summed up briefly thus: The ships were made fast by big anchors and thick cables. This is evident from the pictures of the Bayeux tapestry. They quanted themselves off into deep water by pushing from the stern with a pole. The men then rowed with their oars, and as soon as clear of the shallows up went the mast and sail, the latter with its yard being fixed permanently to the former. A number of the crew would haul on to the backstays aft as the mast and sail were brought into position, the mast being inserted in its step and tabernacle. Apparently there were no braces, but the sail was controlled with a sheet from each clew. Similarly when making land and about to bring up or beach the vessel, sail and mast were bodily lowered and allowed to come forward, part of the crew remaining aft to steady the mast and sail as they came down to the deck. The steering was done by a single paddle or side-rudder placed on the starboard side. As a protection for the oarsmen a line of shields—doubtless those which they actually wore in battle—ran round the gunwale overlapping each other. A small jolly-boat was sometimes towed astern for landing from the bigger type of craft, while for greater convenience a look-out man was sent to the top of the mast. This is distinctly shown in the Bayeux tapestry.

It is more than likely that North European seamanship had not reached a very high stage of perfection, excepting among the Norsemen, at this time. Otherwise William the Conqueror would probably not have lost part of his fleet in a summer’s gale off the French coast when preparing for his invasion of England. Nor, some years later, would the Blanche Nef have been handled so negligently among the rocks round Cape Barfleur as to founder. It is pretty clear that there were too much drink and frivolity on board; but a careful skipper would scarcely have allowed such a dereliction of duty if he realised fully what sort of a task it was to take a ship through such tricky waters as the Race of Catteville. But the finest and, in fact, the only way to make good seamen is to take them for long voyages. And so, in spite of the fact that less than a century and a half later the type of ships had scarcely changed, yet there is an evident improvement in the seaman’s skill. For everyone must concede that to take a fleet of over a hundred twelfth-century ships on such a long voyage as from Dartmouth to the Holy Land was in itself a very fine feat of endurance and skill. Considering the nature of these craft, the absence of navigational facilities, the crowded condition of their hulls, the bad weather they had to encounter, the sufferings of their crews, and a host of minor difficulties which had to be borne, one can only wonder that they ever reached their destination and returned to their native country. Richard I was certainly a seaman. You will remember that on that terrible night of Easter Eve, April 13, 1190, his fleet were in the Mediterranean and caught in a heavy gale. His mariners were prostrate with sea-sickness, some of his ships were ungovernable, the horses in the holds of others would be causing the crews endless anxiety in addition to the troubles of the wind and wave. But not a ship was lost. They all came through the ordeal. All night long Richard kept a light burning at his masthead and hove-to, waiting for his chickens to gather round the mother hen.

If ever a fleet of ships was tried it was this expedition from the Devonshire village. They were not many days out and had not yet said farewell to the Bay of Biscay before they were caught in bad weather and the fleet scattered. But it is certain that this fleet accomplished what it did partly owing to the fact that every day at sea gave them greater experience, and partly because they were well found, or as well found as ever ships of that period could be. We can note the mind of a far-seeing man in the care with which these craft were fitted out. Thus, for example, in bad weather there was every chance of the steering oar being carried away or being broken into half. To guard against such an awkward possibility each ship went forth from the cliffs of Dartmouth with a number of spare steering oars. Another very likely article to carry away on a long voyage, involving bringing-up in all sorts of places, was the anchor. Each principal ship, therefore, carried no less than thirteen of such, though it should be added that of these some consisted of grapnels used in getting alongside the enemy and fighting hand to hand. There were spare oars also, two spare sails, three sets of halyards, stays, and other ropes—everything, in fact, except the mast and the ship’s boat was carried in duplicate. There were knights in armour, infantry, horses, and victuals for a whole year to be stowed away in these ships, so a great deal of thought had to be expended.

If we had been able to look down on to the harbour of one of the Cinque Ports of the thirteenth century and watched some of the contemporary ships getting under way, we should have been struck with the extreme simplicity of their seamanship. And in the fewest words I propose now to sketch very roughly the manner in which such craft would put to sea. I am assuming nothing which cannot be verified by actually existing historical data. Picture, then, a modified Viking type of ship with good freeboard, high stem- and stern-posts, with a castellated structure at each end, and a mast stepped about midships and supported by shrouds and backstays. The crews go on board. These consist of the masters or “rectores.” Under them come the steersmen or “sturmanni,” who were responsible for the piloting of the ship. They would possess more knowledge than anyone else of their own waters and adjacent havens.

The crew consisted of three classes. First of all were the “galiotæ” or galley-men. These I understand to be the men who did the rowing as in the Viking ships. The second class consisted of “marinelli,” who may have been the fighting men of the ship; and the third division was found in the “nautæ” or sailors, who were obviously the men that went aloft, got up anchor, set and furled sail, worked the sheets, and did the deck work. On these ships there were usually about forty hands carried; but there are instances of seventy being the full complement. In such cases as the last-mentioned there was a superior officer carried in addition to the usual officers and crew. Life on board these ships was certainly very different from that which the modern seaman finds on the sail-less steamship. But these rude, virile seamen were well paid for their work; they had plenty of excitement to keep up their spirits, they were given their food and wine, even though their clothes were scanty and probably had to be found by themselves. But when they were wounded they had the satisfaction of being pensioned off.

Having repaired on board, then, we see the “rector” at the helm, while some of the crew are forward hauling up the ship’s cable by the bows. This cable leads aft, where it passes round a windlass that is turned by other members of the crew with handspikes. Meanwhile one of the crew by the aid of his hands and knees climbs up the backstays to let loose the lashing which keeps the squaresail furled to the yard. Note that the sail is not lowered or raised to or from deck, but kept permanently aloft. Before he has allowed the canvas to be unfurled, and before the anchor has been broken out from the ground, a couple of trumpeters mount the top of the stern-castle and blow their notes to warn any incoming craft that they are emerging. It is exactly analogous to the blowing of a modern steamship’s syren when the big liner is clearing from her port.

The thirteenth-century ship, then, puts to sea. She has both oars and a sail, she has an able crew, she has a good, strong hull of a healthy seaworthy type. She is ready for anything that comes along. If the wind fails, then she can send a man aloft to furl the sail and her crew can get out their oars. If it comes on to blow very hard indeed, she can take in one, two, or three reefs by means of reef-points as to-day. And then when the enemy is espied and the time comes for battle, the fighting men can prepare swords, axes, bows and arrows, lances, and engines for throwing heavy stones, while some of the men go aloft and climb into the fighting top, from which they are ready to hurl down those heavy stones which crashed through an enemy’s decks. For it is certain from contemporary illustrations that these ships were now no longer mere open craft.

In their fighting methods brute force was chiefly relied upon; but not always. That deadly mixture known as Greek fire, which was some sort of mixture containing principally pitch and sulphur, was a very efficacious method of routing the enemy when the methods of grapnels, swords, arrows, and stones were not all-availing. As soon as this Greek fire was exposed to the air it became ignited, and there flowed a stream of fire over ships and sea creating wholesale panic. It could not be extinguished by water; only vinegar or sand or earth could put it out. Wherever it went it burnt up hulls, spars, and sails, suffocating the terrified crews in a very short time. Ramming, as a naval manœuvre, was far from obsolete in the Middle Ages, as we know from actual incidents in literature and pictorial representation.

It would not be correct to assert that there was a total disregard of tactics in medieval times. When Richard was cruising with his fleet in the Mediterranean at the time of the Crusades, he caused his ships to sail in eight separate lines, each line being within trumpet call of the other. Richard himself was in the eighth line as commander-in-chief. Treatises on naval tactics had been written by Mediterranean experts, but I do not think that there is any evidence for supposing that the English seamen ever learnt such a thing until Richard’s ships went to the Mediterranean. So much happened for improving maritime matters subsequent to that Crusade that we need not be surprised to find, less than thirty years later, the English seamen for the first time in northern waters exhibiting an appreciation of all that tactics meant in battle. We have not space here to go into the battles, but you will find the first instance of this new knowledge in that naval encounter which took place in August of 1217 off the South Foreland. Notwithstanding that the fleet of Eustace the Monk was numerically far stronger than ours, yet by clever tactical manœuvres our ships and men not only prevented his from landing, but inflicted a heavy slaughter and defeat upon the invaders. The English commander was Hubert de Burgh, and to his cleverness the success was due. Sixteen large, well-armed craft were his ships, with twenty smaller ships; or a total of thirty-six. Eustace had eighty, or more than twice as many. The key to the victory was simply this. When the enemy’s ships were seen to be sailing with a fresh southerly breeze from the French coast, the English fleet put to sea, stood on till they were well to windward, and then easing their sheets bore down on to the invaders with a fair wind, hooked on to them with grapnels, shot at them with arrows and threw unslaked lime at the Frenchmen, with the result that the breeze carried both arrows and lime exactly where the English had wanted—to leeward. With this confusion the English boarded them and hacked away at the halyards so that mast and sail came down, burying many on the confused deck. After that the victory was easy.

Now such a well-thought-out plan of fighting shows that naval warfare had in England already reached the scientific stage. If the reader will take his chart of the Straits of Dover and work out the manœuvres which I have given in greater detail elsewhere,22 he will see that the English admiral displayed a perfect knowledge of the Channel tides, seamanship, and naval tactics in thus outwitting a force twice his own strength. And again, at the battle of Sluys, the victory was won by the superior tactics of the English, which showed excellent seamanship, perfect knowledge of the Flemish tides, and sound judgment in the problems of the sea. The English in 1340 played the same game as they had in 1217. They confused the enemy, who wondered why the English fleet were apparently going away from them. They wondered still more when, after standing out to sea, the English went about and came down on them like a pack of sea-monsters eager to devour them and successful in the attempt. So also exactly ten years later, in that very interesting battle of Les Espagnols sur Mer, which is unknown to many a modern layman, when Edward II commanded in person, we find everything being done by system and plan. He comes down with his Court to lodge near the sea. He himself goes afloat, spends a long time in training manœuvres, keeps a look-out man at the masthead who suddenly spies the enemy coming down Channel, when, to quote the words of Froissart, he ordered the trumpets to be sounded and the ships “to form a line of battle.” The rest is merely a narrative of collisions between ship and ship, with masts and sails falling, chains and grapnels straining, the hurling of stones and iron bars from the castle at the masthead, the felling of one another’s masts, the cutting adrift of the enemy’s halyards and shrouds, the heaving overboard (a favourite and regular habit in war) of every man and boy of the enemy they could lay their hands on, and finally victory to the English.

Even coasting voyages during the Middle Ages were risky proceedings, with no charts of the English coast—at any rate, none that were of much good—and with no regular lighthouses to warn the mariner off outlying dangers: only through the charity of the monastic establishments, such as that on St. Albans Head, were lights kept burning at night on a few promontories. It may be that it was out of gratitude for such kindness that the mariner lowered sail when he passed a monastery on the shore. As to the ships themselves of this time, we know that the planking was fastened not by iron and copper nails, but by wooden pegs called treenails. The hulls were painted with pitch, tar, oil, and resin. In these early accounts there is a reference to the “seilyerdes,” and the sail itself consisted of twenty-six cloths. The latter was painted red, possibly tanned something like the modern sailing trawlers, and the canvas was fitted with “liche-ropes,” “bolt-ropes,” and “rif-ropes.” From Viking times bonnets were laced to the foot of the sail to give increased canvas for use in fine weather.

When it was that the word reef was first employed cannot be ascertained, but it is found in literature (“Confessio Amantis”) in the year 1193, or three years after Richard’s fleet set out to the Mediterranean. Here the word “ref” or “rif” clearly denotes something that could be slacked off. But there seems to be some possibility of confusion between the device by which sail can be shortened and that “bonnet” by which the sail’s area can be increased. During the early part of the fourteenth century the rudder began to disappear from the quarter where it had been since the times of the Egyptians, and to be placed astern in the position it occupies to-day. This necessitated the use of chains, the iron for which, as also for the anchors, was fetched from Spain. But there is reference concerning these medieval ships to such items as “steyes” and “baksteyes,” “hempen cordage,” “cranelines” for securing the forestay at its foot, “hauceres” (hawsers), “peyntours” (painters, derived from the French word signifying a noose), “boyeropes,” for the cables, “seysynges,” “botropes,” “schetes” for the clews of the sail, “boweline,” “saundynglyne” for the use of the pilot-leadsman, “shives” and “polives,” tallow, hooks, and so on.

The anchors of the king’s galleys were 7 feet long, and his great ship carried five cables. Under the “rectores” were the “sturmanni” or steersmen, who were responsible for the supervision of the seamanship on board. Next in order came the “galiotæ” or galley-men, and finally the “marinelli” or mariners and the “nautæ” or common sailors. Later on the “rector” became “magister,” a constable was chosen to look after the arms, and there were added also a carpenter, a clerk who presently became purser, and a boatswain.