DISCOVERIES BY FRENCH AND PORTUGUESE ALONG THE COAST—CAPE OF GOOD HOPE—RESULTS.
The French of Normandy contested with the Portuguese the honor of first venturing into the Gulf of Guinea. It was, however, nearly a hundred years from the time when the latter first embarked in these discoveries, until, in 1487, they reached the Cape of Good Hope. For about eight centuries the Mohammedan in the interior had been shaping out an influence for himself by proselyting and commerce. The Portuguese discoverer met this influence on the African shores. The Venetians held a sort of partnership with the Mohammedans in the trade of the East: Portugal had then taken scarcely any share in the brilliant and exciting politics of the Levant; her vocation was to the seas of the West, but in that direction she was advancing to an overwhelming triumph over her Eastern competitor.
On the 3d of May, 1487, a boat left one of two small high-sterned vessels, of less tonnage than an ordinary river sloop of the present day, and landed a few weather-beaten men on a low island of rocks, on which they proceeded to erect a cross. The sand which rustled across their footsteps, the sigh of the west wind among the waxberry bushes, and the croakings of the penguins as they waddled off,—these were the voices which hailed the opening of a new era for the world; for Bartholomew Diaz had then passed the southern point of Africa, and was listening to the surf of the Antarctic Sea.
This enterprising navigator had sailed from Lisbon in August, 1486, and seems to have reached Sierra Parda, north of the Orange River, in time to catch the last of the strong southeasterly winds, prevailing during the summer months on the southern coast of Africa, in the region of the Cape. He stood to the southwest, in vessels little calculated for holding a wind, and at length reached the region of the prevailing southwest winds. Then standing to the eastward he passed the Cape of Good Hope, of which he was in search, and bearing away to the northward, after running a distance of four hundred miles, brought up at the island of St. Croix above referred to. Coasting along on his return, the Cape was doubled, and named Cabo Tormentoso, or the Cape of Storms. The King of Portugal, on the discoverer’s return, gave it the more promising name of Cabo de buen Speranza, or Cape of Good Hope.
Africa thus fell into the grasp of Europe. Trade flowed with a full stream into this new channel. Portugal conquered and settled its shores. Missionaries accompanied the Portuguese discoverers and conquerors to various parts of Africa, where the Portuguese dominion had been established, and for long periods influenced the condition of the country.