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.