map, which is found in one of the Cotton MSS. in the British
Museum, is a geographical achievement remarkable in the age which
produced it. It may perhaps be the work of an Irish scholar-monk. It
shows real knowledge and scientific insight in one of the gloomiest
of the "dark ages" of Europe.]

CHAPTER XX

PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL

But now a new era was about to begin--a new age was dawning--and we
open a wonderful chapter in the history of discovery, perhaps the most
wonderful in all the world. In Portugal a man had arisen who was to
awaken the slumbering world of travel and direct it to the high seas.

And the name of this man was Henry, a son of King John of Portugal.
His mother was an Englishwoman, daughter of "John of Gaunt,
time-honoured Lancaster." The Prince was, therefore, a nephew of Henry
IV. and great-grandson of Edward III. of England. But if English blood
flowed in his veins he, too, was the son of the "greatest King that
ever sat on the throne of Portugal," and at the age of twenty he had
already learned something of the sea that lay between his father's
kingdom and the northern coast of Africa. Thus, when in the year 1415
King John planned a great expedition across the narrow seas to Ceuta,
an important Moorish city in North Africa, it fell to Prince Henry
himself to equip seven triremes, six biremes, twenty-six ships of
burden, and a number of small craft. These he had ready at Lisbon when
news reached him that the Queen, his mother, was stricken ill. The
King and three sons were soon at her bedside. It was evident that she
was dying.

"What wind blows so strongly against the side of the house?" she asked
suddenly.

"The wind blows from the north," replied her sons.

"It is the wind most favourable for your departure," replied Philippa.
And with these words the English Queen died.

This is not the place to tell how the expedition started at once as
the dead Queen had wished, how Ceuta was triumphantly taken, and how
Prince Henry distinguished himself till all Europe rang with his fame.
Henry V. of England begged him to come over and take command of his
forces. The Emperor of Germany sent the same request. But he had other
schemes for his life. He would not fight the foes of England or of
Germany, rather would he fight the great ocean whose waves dashed high
against the coast of Portugal. He had learned something of inland
Africa, of the distant coast of Guinea, and he was fired with th