g skin" shining out above a piece of damask given to him to
wear by the Portuguese explorer. From his shoulder hung a dressed
horse's tail, a symbol of royalty; on his head was a cap of palm leaves.

It was here in this Congo district that the first negro was baptized
in the presence of some twenty-five thousand heathen comrades. The
ceremony was performed by Portuguese priests, and the negro King
ordered all idols to be destroyed throughout his dominions. Here, too,
a little Christian church was built, and the King and Queen became
such earnest Christians that they sent their children to Portugal to
be taught.

[Illustration: NEGRO BOYS, FROM CABOT'S MAP, 1544.]

But even the discoveries of Diego Cam pale before the great achievement
of Bartholomew Diaz, who was now to accomplish the great task which
Prince Henry the Navigator had yearned to see fulfilled--the rounding
of the Cape of Storms.

The expedition set sail for the south in August 1486. Passing the spot
where Diego Cam had erected his farthest pillar, Diaz reached a
headland, now known as Diaz Point, where he, too, placed a Portuguese
pillar that remained unbroken till about a hundred years ago. Still
to the south he sailed, struggling with wind and weather, to Cape Voltas,
close to the mouth of the Orange River. Then for another fortnight
the little ships were driven before the wind, south and ever south,
with half-reefed sails and no land in sight. Long days and longer nights
passed to find them still drifting in an unknown sea, knowing not what
an hour might bring forth. At last the great wind ceased to blow and
it became icy cold. They had sailed to the south of South Africa.
Steering north, Diaz now fell in with land--land with cattle near the
shore and cowherds tending them, but the black cowherds were so alarmed
at the sight of the Portuguese that they fled away inland.

We know now, what neither Diaz nor his crew even suspected, that he
had actually rounded, without seeing, the Cape of Good Hope. The coast
now turned eastward till a small island was reached in a bay we now
call Algoa Bay. Here Bartholomew Diaz set up another pillar with its
cross and inscription, naming the rock Santa Cruz. This was the first
land beyond the Cape ever trodden by European feet. Unfortunately the
natives--Kafirs--threw stones at them, and it was impossible to make
friends and to land. The crews, too, began to complain. They were worn
out with continual work, weary f