The Portuguese did a far less extraordinary thing in taking an entire century to discover the Western coast of Africa. Our Normans, in a very brief space had discovered the half of it. In spite of all that is said about the laudable perseverance of Prince Henry, in establishing the Lisbon school, the Venetian Cadamosto clearly proves the want of ability of the Portuguese pilots. They no sooner had one at once bold and highly gifted, in the person of Bartholomew Diaz, who doubled the Cape, than they replaced him by Gama, a noble of the king's household, and, above all, a soldier. The truth is, that the Portuguese cared more about conquests to make, and treasure to gain, than about discoveries, properly so called. Gama was brave as brave could be, but he was only too faithful to his orders to suffer no other flag in the same seas. A ship load of Pilgrims from Mecca, whom he barbarously murdered, exasperated all the hates, and augmented, throughout the East, that horror of the very name of Christian, which more and more closed Asia, alike against discoverers, for the sake of discovery, and adventurers for the sake of plunder. Is it true that Magellan, before his great enterprise, had seen the Pacific laid down upon a globe by the German, Behaim? No; that globe has never been produced. Had he seen, in the possession of his master, the king of Portugal, a chart which had it so laid down? It has been said, but never proved. It is far more probable that some of the adventurers who, already, for twenty years, had been traversing the American continent, had seen the Pacific, not on globes or charts, but with their own eyes. That report, which was circulated, spread admirably well with the theoretical calculation of such a counterpoise, necessary to our hemisphere, and to the equilibrium of the globe. There is not a more terrible biography than that of Magellan. Throughout, we have nothing but combat, far voyages, flights, trials, attempted assassination, and at length, death, among the scourges. He fought in Africa, he fought in the Indies, and he married among the brave but ferocious Malays;--whom, by the way, he seems not a little to have resembled. During his long residence in Asia, he collected all possible information, preparatory to his great expedition, to find the way by America, to the Spice Islands, the Moluccas; thus getting spices so much cheaper than by the old course. His original idea of the enterprise, was, thus, an altogether commercial one. To lower the price of pepper, was the primitive inspiration of the most heroic voyage ever made on this globe!