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.
[Illustration: THIRTEENTH-CENTURY MERCHANT SAILING SHIP.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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