Sagres was a kind of international bureau created for the future development of the world, but especially and primarily it had for its object the reaching of India. Henry’s countrymen who had been about over the continent of Europe had encountered in the markets of Bruges and London travellers and merchants from other parts of the world, and in course of conversation managed to pick up a good deal of information regarding the overland trade to India and the Far East. Henry’s chief-of-staff was his own brother Pedro, who also had travelled extensively and had visited all the countries in the west of Europe. He, too, had come back not empty-handed, but with maps and plans, books and much verbal information regarding the places visited. All this information went to swell the general geographical knowledge which Henry was accumulating and systematising. Close to Sagres was the naval arsenal of Lagos, over which the Prince was governor. Here he built those caravels which were to carry out the theories that he had worked out for his captains. On their return he set to work to sift the data which his ships and men had brought back with them, to correct the maps according to this new information, to readjust the instruments, to compare the accounts of travellers ancient and modern, and then to hand the conclusions of all these to the captains of the next ships that went forth to explore. Thus the Sagres naval college was at once highly theoretical and highly practical. It was also founded on a strong religious basis. Besides the palace, observatory, and study which he built for himself, Henry had erected a chapel, a village for his helpers, and among the instructions to those whom he sent out to explore was the admonition to bring Christianity into all new territory. Here were men engaged in teaching navigation to seamen; here were others instructing pupils how to draw maps and nautical instruments. Even Arabians and Jews were imported to give the Portuguese the benefit of their learning in astronomical and mathematical subjects. It was indeed a cosmopolitan crowd which collected at this Atlantic village. Orientals and Portuguese, veteran pilots from Italy, shipbuilders, seamen, and students of all kinds, cartographers and instrument-makers. But they were assembled there for one purpose. Led by the example and patience and single-hearted enthusiasm of their governor, who guided their labours with prudence and forethought, this little band was to be the nucleus which should form that magnificent race of Portuguese seamen who were to achieve so much during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.