The most enthusiastic projector of voyages of discovery undertaken to ascertain the character of the land and water divisions of the earth, in the early part of the fifteenth century, was Prince Henry, the son of King John I. of Portugal.[91] When twenty-one years of age, he witnessed, in 1415, the taking of Ceuta, on the northern coast of Africa, opposite the southern extremity of Portugal. While at this opulent city, he learned from its merchants and traders that the continent extended far southward and was inhabited by many strange people. Fixing his residence on the promontory of Sagres, at the southwestern extremity of Portugal, he began to send the most experienced seamen in the service of Portugal to explore the western coast of Africa. For a time Cape de Não, in north latitude, 28° 45´ was considered the limit of safe navigation. It was a common saying among Portuguese seamen, that “He who should pass Cabo de Não, either will return or not.”[92] Beyond it was Cape Bojador, in 26° 12´ north latitude. This rocky headland, for a time, was also deemed perilous and impassable. “Beyond this cape” it was said, “there is no people whatever; the ground is as barren as that of Libya,—no water, no trees, no grass in it; the sea is so shallow that at a league from the land it is only a fathom deep; the currents are so strong that a ship passing the cape cannot return.”[93] The attempts made by Prince Henry’s mariners to double the two capes are thus commented upon by Antonio Galvano, the Portuguese historian,[94] in his treatise respecting the routes by which spices came from India to the year 1550: “In those days none of the Portuguese had yet passed Cabo de Não in 29 degrees of latitude.” But after it was doubled, “when they came to another cape named Bojador, there was not one of them that dared to risk his life beyond it. The prince was exceedingly displeased with their want of confidence and unmanly timidity.”[95] Of the number of seamen that had made unsuccessful attempts to pass the cape was Gil Eannes. Disappointed as Prince Henry was by these failures to accomplish that which he had ordered them to do, he nevertheless gave his timorous navigators all the encouragement he could to induce them to make other and more persistent efforts to double the formidable headland. In 1434, he again sent Gil Eannes to explore the coast beyond Cape Bojador. Before the latter departed the prince endeavored to dispel the terrifying fancies that might deter him from attempting to prosecute the undertaking for which he was commissioned. “You cannot incur such peril” said the prince, “that the promised reward shall not be commensurate thereto. It is very strange to me that you should be governed by a fear of something of which you are ignorant, for if the things reported had any authentication, I should not find fault with you for believing them. The stories of the four seamen driven out of their course to Flanders or to the ports to which they were