But Prince Henry (for I have run ahead of my story again) was not content to study and teach on land alone. He was fired with the ardor of discovery and conquest likely to augment Portugal’s wealth and influence in the East. Expedition after expedition was sent southward, and in 1435 Henry’s ships finally passed Cape Bojador. Great was the wonder and rejoicing thereat, for it had always been taught by the monks that this cape was the end of the earth; but it was not until 1462 that the Cape Verd Islands and Sierra Leone were reached. Prince Henry had been dead since 1460, but the influence of his wise and untiring enthusiasm and work lived on, and inspired the king and people of Portugal to renewed efforts at solving that riddle of Africa that perhaps the Egyptian sphinx was meant to typify. By 1469 trade had been opened with the Gold Coast, and a few years later the mouth of the Congo was found. These advances showed that there was nothing unnatural or fearful in the southern latitudes, as sailors had been taught to believe from time immemorial,—a superstitious dread which the old chart-makers long sustained by their habit of filling the empty sea-spaces on their maps with fearsome and wondrous monsters,—and therefore, in 1486, King John II sent Bartholomew Dias in two sail-boats—pinnaces of fifty tons each—with orders to go as far as he could; and this bold captain, passing the last known headland of the Guinea coast, sailed on and on, tracing the West African coast, and landing here and there to examine the swampy shores, to get fresh water, and to hoist the castellated banner of Portugal in token of possession before the wondering eyes of naked negroes. At length he was blown and buffeted for days and days in heavy storms, and at their close found himself far to the eastward of his former longitude, whereupon he fought his way on and sighted land which he rightly determined must be the southern extremity of Africa. This was in 1487. Returning to Lisbon toward Christmas of that year, he reported his experiences, and dwelling especially upon the rough time he had had in the south, proposed to style the point of the continent Cape of all the Storms; but King John, foreseeing great things to follow for his country, said, “No; we will call it the Cape of Good Hope”; and so it remains to this day—but all the storms remain about it, too! [Illustration: PORTION OF A FIFTEENTH CENTURY SEA-CHART, BY TOSCANELLI. Copied by permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., from Justin Winsor’s “Narrative and Critical History of America.”]