Of the various names by which the divisions of Lower Guinea were known, Loango was applied to the country south of the Gabun and north of the Congo river. It is now chiefly included in French Congo. Congo was used to designate the country immediately south of the river of the same name, usually spoken of until the last half of the 19th century as the Zaire. Congo is now one of the subdivisions of Portuguese West Africa (see ANGOLA). It must not be confounded with the Belgian Congo. Few questions in historical geography have been more keenly discussed than that of the first discovery of Guinea by the navigators of modern Europe. Lancelot Malocello, a Genoese, in 1270 reached at least as far as the Canaries. The first direct attempt to find a sea route to India was, it is said, also made by Genoese, Ugolino and Guido de Vivaldo, Tedisio Doria and others who equipped two galleys and sailed south along the African coast in 1291. Beyond the fact that they passed Cape Nun there is no trustworthy record of their voyage. In 1346 a Catalan expedition started for "the river of gold" on the Guinea coast; its fate is unknown. The French claim that between 1364 and 1410 the people of Dieppe sent out several expeditions to Guinea; and Jean de Bethencourt, who settled in the Canaries about 1402, made explorations towards the south. At length the consecutive efforts of the navigators employed by Prince Henry of Portugal--Gil Eannes, Diniz Diaz, Nuno Tristam, Alvaro Fernandez, Cadamosto, Usodimare and Diego Gomez--made known the coast as far as the Gambia, and by the end of the 15th century the whole region was familiar to Europeans. For further information see SENEGAL, GOLD COAST, IVORY COAST, FRENCH GUINEA, PORTUGUESE GUINEA, LIBERIA, &c. For the history of European discoveries, consult G. E. de Azurara, _Chronica de descobrimento e conquista de Guine_, published, with an introduction, by Barros de Santarem (Paris, 1841), English translation, _The Discovery and Conquest of Guinea_, by C. R. Beazley and E. Prestage (Hakluyt Society publications, 2 vols., London, 1896-1899, vol. ii. has an introduction on the early history of African exploration, &c. with full bibliographical notes). L. Estancelin, _Recherches sur les voyages et decouvertes des navigateurs normands en Afrique_ (Paris, 1832); Villault de Bellefond, _Relation des costes d'Afrique appellees Guinee_ (Paris, 1669); Pere Labat, _Nouvelle Relation de l'Afrique occidentale_ (Paris, 1728); Desmarquets, _Mem. chron. pour servir a l'hist. de Dieppe_ (1875); Santarem, _Priorite de la decouverte des pays situes sur la cote occidentale d'Afrique_ (Paris, 1842); R. H. Major, _Life of Prince Henry the Navigator_ (London, 1868); and the elaborate review of Major's work by M. Codine in the _Bulletin de la Soc. de Geog._ (1873); A. E. Nordenskiold, _Periplus_ (Stockholm, 1897); _The Story of Africa_, vol. i. (London, 1892), edited by Dr Robert Brown. FOOTNOTE: