al, determine to try whether
another route might not be within his reach, and sent Phoenician vessels
from the Red Sea, with orders to sail round Africa, and return by the
Mediterranean. It is not improbable that, from being unacquainted with the
depth to which it penetrates the south, he had expected the voyage to be a
brief one. It seems evident that the navigators themselves did not
conceive that it could extend beyond the equator, from their surprise at
seeing the sun rise on their _right hand_. The narrative tells us--"The
Phoenicians, taking their course from the Red Sea, entered into the
Southern Ocean on the approach of autumn; they landed in Lybia, planted
corn, and remained till the harvest. They then sailed again. After having
thus spent two years, they passed the Columns of Hercules in the third,
and returned to Egypt." Herodotus doubted their story--"Their relation,"
says the honest old Greek, "may obtain belief from others, but to me it
seems incredible; for they affirmed, that, having sailed round Africa,
they _had the sun on their right hand_. Thus was Africa for the first time
known."

Thus the very circumstance which the old historian regarded as throwing
doubt on the discovery, is now one of the strongest corroborations of its
truth.[2] There appear to have been several attempts to sail along the
west coast, by ancient expeditions; but to the Portuguese is due the
modern honour of having first sailed round the Cape. From 1412, the
Portuguese, under a race of adventurous princes, had extended their
discoveries; but it occupied them sixty years to reach the Line, and
nearly thirty years more to reach the Cape, which they first called Cabo
Tormentoso, (Stormy Cape.) But the king gave it the more lucky, though the
less poetical, title which it now bears.

[2] Reunell, p. 682.

The triumph of Columbus, in his discovery of the New World in 1493, raised
the emulation of the Portuguese, then regarded as the first navigators in
the world; yet it was not until four years after, that their expedition
was sent, to equalize the stupendous accession to the Spanish domains, by
the possession of the East. In July 1497, Gama sailed, reached Calicut May
2, 1498, and returned to Portugal, covered with well-earned renown, after
a voyage of upwards of two years.

Having given this brief outline of the divisions and character of the
mighty continent, which seemed important to the better understanding of
the immedia