In earlier years Cadiz was a famous seaport. Her sons were immemorial explorers. The presentiment of a land across the sea was theirs by intuition. Constantly they extended their expeditions, and would have extended them still further had not the Church interfered. The spirit of enterprise, checked as heretical, revived centuries later in a neighboring land. It was Portugal that it inspired. There the work of exploration and discovery was resumed. The island of Madeira was reached in 1420, the Azores annexed in 1431. But it was along the African coast that Portuguese effort was mainly directed. Tradition asserted that the entire continent had been circumnavigated centuries before by voyagers from Phœnicia; but, as no details were recorded, the adventure was regarded as something more than dubious. However, the west coast began now to be systematically explored. Nuno Tristao entered the Senegal River in 1445; a year later Diniz Dias, a fellow-navigator, sailed as far as Cape Verd. The equator was not crossed until 1471; the Congo was revealed in 1484; and in 1486 the crowning feat of all was accomplished, when Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Stormy Cape, soon to become known as the Cape of Good Hope, and opened up communication with the East by water, instead of overland or by the indirect route of the Red Sea, which necessitated the transshipment of all merchandise conveyed that way. The expedition to the west which Columbus ultimately directed was conceived by him in 1474, and unfolded to John II., king of Portugal, by whom, however, it was rejected; whereupon Columbus dispatched his brother Bartholomew to enter into negotiations with Henry VII. of England, and after assuring himself that neither Genoa nor Venice was likely to lend him a willing ear, much less ready help, he repaired to the south of Spain in 1485. Had Bartholomew not fallen into the hands of pirates, and so been prevented from reaching his destination for several years, it is more than probable that the credit as well as the profit of the discovery of America would have fallen at once to England, as Henry had both the means and the inclination to indulge in some such venture, provided it was not too costly, and showed any reasonable prospect of success. As it was, Christopher was left to pursue his pleadings before the Spanish Court. It was an unfortunate time to put forward any proposals calculated to divert the wealth and strength of the kingdom beyond its own borders; for Ferdinand and Isabella were then in the very midst of the campaign which ended in the final overthrow of the Moorish dominion, in the Peninsula.