And now, having closed the fifteenth century with the achievements of the Spanish in the West, we open the sixteenth with those of the Portuguese in the East. [Illustration: THE PHAETON OR TROPIC BIRD.] [Illustration: VASCO DA GAMA.] CHAPTER XVIII. PORTUGUESE NAVIGATION UNDER EMMANUEL--POPULAR PREJUDICES--THE LUSIAD OF CAMOENS--VASCO DA GAMA--MAPS OF AFRICA OF THE PERIOD--PREPARATIONS FOR AN INDIAN VOYAGE--RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES--THE DEPARTURE--RENDEZVOUS AT THE CAPE VERDS--LANDING UPON THE COAST--THE NATIVES--AN INVITATION TO DINNER, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES--A STORM--MUTINY--THE SPECTRE OF THE CAPE. In the year 1495, John II. of Portugal was succeeded by his cousin, Emmanuel, into whose mind he had a short time before his death instilled a portion of his own zeal for maritime discovery and commercial supremacy. He had especially dwelt upon the necessity of continuing the progress of African research beyond the point which Bartholomew Diaz had lately reached, into the regions where lay the East Indies with their wealth and marvellous productions, and thus substituting for the tedious land-route a more expeditious track by sea. Upon his accession, Emmanuel found that a strong opposition existed to the extension of Portuguese commerce and discovery. Arguments were urged against it in his own councils, and had a marked effect upon the public mind by heightening the danger of the intended voyage. In our narrative of the first East Indian expedition, we shall often have occasion to quote from a poem written in commemoration of it,--the Lusiad of Camoens, a semi-religious epic and the masterpiece of Portuguese literature,--Lusiade being the poetic and symbolical name of Portugal. Camoens describes at the outset the hostility of the nation to further maritime adventure, and places in the mouth of a reverend adviser of the king the following forcible appeal: "Oh, frantic thirst of Honor and of Fame, The crowd's blind tribute, a fallacious name; What stings, what plagues, what secret scourges cursed, Torment those bosoms where thy pride is nursed! What dangers threaten and what deaths destroy The hapless youth whom thy vain gleams decoy! Thou dazzling meteor, vain as fleeting air, What new dread horror dost thou now prepare? Oh, madness of Ambition! thus to dare Dangers so fruitless, so remote a war! That Fame's vain flattery may thy name adorn, And thy proud titles on her flag be borne: Thee, Lord of Persia, thee of India lord, O'er Ethiopia vast, and Araby adored!"