That the discovery of America was so long delayed will not surprise us if we remember the following facts. The Carthaginians, who had done something to explore the islands off the coast of Africa, had been overthrown in their struggle with Rome. The Romans were not a seafaring people; Europe was large enough to monopolise their energies, and for the rest their gaze turned naturally enough to Africa, or to the East, which was inseparably bound up with their traditions. After the fall of the Roman Empire it was long before her Teutonic conquerors were strong enough, or consolidated enough, to think of foreign enterprise. When that time arrived, it was only natural that they too should look eastward. The East was the birthplace of their religion, and Palestine was in the hands of the Saracens and subsequently of the Turks; the East was the fabled treasure-house of riches and of luxury. Eastward therefore the adventurer, the trader, and the pilgrim turned, and found in the Mediterranean their natural pathway. Besides all this, as a glance at a physical atlas will show, the winds and the currents of that part of the Atlantic which lies in the latitude of central Europe, are not favourable to western enterprise. There westerly winds prevail throughout the year, and with greater force than those winds which occasionally blow from the north and east. Moreover, the great ocean current known as the Gulf Stream sets continuously eastwards. To the north and south of these latitudes the conditions are different. In the north, the great arctic current runs southward from Davis’ Straits to Greenland, and thence to the North American shore. In the south, the equatorial current sweeps from the shores of Africa to Brazil; while immediately north of the Equator, the trade winds blow to the south-west, and south of the Equator to the north-west, continuously. It might therefore have been predicted that America would not be discovered until the northern or southern latitudes had been occupied by some seafaring nation with sufficient resources, and sufficient knowledge of navigation, to brave the unknown perils of the ocean. In the tenth century, indeed, the Norsemen had discovered Labrador, Newfoundland, and even the mainland of North America, which they called ‘Wineland.’ But their numbers were insufficient, Europe offered plenty of scope for their inroads and for settlement, and the memories of Wineland remained in their sagas alone. In the southern latitudes there was little opportunity for such enterprise until the close of the fourteenth century. Then, however, as shown at p. 85, the Genoese, and subsequently the Portuguese, had begun to creep down the African coast. The primary aim of the Portuguese in their expeditions had been to seek an oceanic route to India and the east, which since the appearance of the remarkable work of Marco Polo at the end of the thirteenth century, had assumed a new importance as an earthly paradise of gold and spices.