oasts of
America. The Portuguese were the first after the Cabots to continue the
search along the Canadian coast for the secret of the hidden East. At
this time, we must remember, the Portuguese were one of the leading
nations of Europe, and they were specially interested in maritime
enterprise. Thanks to Columbus, the Spaniards had, it is true, carried
off the grand prize of discovery. But the Portuguese had rendered
service not less useful. From their coasts, jutting far out into the
Atlantic, they had sailed southward and eastward, and had added much to
the knowledge of the globe. For generations, both before and after
Columbus, the pilots and sailors of Portugal were among the most
successful and daring in the world.

For nearly a hundred years before the discovery of America the
Portuguese had been endeavouring to find an ocean route to the spice
islands of the East and to the great Oriental empires which, tradition
said, lay far off on a distant ocean, and which Marco Polo and other
travellers had reached by years of painful land travel across the
interior of Asia. Prince Henry of Portugal was busy with these tasks at
the middle of the fifteenth century. Even before this, Portuguese
sailors had found their way to the Madeiras and the Canary Islands, and
to the Azores, which lie a thousand miles out in the Atlantic. But
under the lead of Prince Henry they began to grope their way down the
coast of Africa, braving the torrid heats and awful calms of that
equatorial region, where the blazing sun, poised overhead in a
cloudless sky, was reflected on the bosom of a stagnant and glistening
ocean. It was their constant hope that at some point the land would be
found to roll back and disclose an ocean pathway round Africa to the
East, the goal of their desire. Year after year they advanced farther,
until at last they achieved a momentous result. In 1487, Bartholomew
Diaz sailed round the southern point of Africa, which received the
significant name of the 'Cape of Good Hope,' and entered the Indian
Ocean. Henceforth a water pathway to the Far East was possible.
Following Diaz, Vasco da Gama, leaving Lisbon in 1497, sailed round the
south of Africa, and, reaching the ports of Hindustan, made the
maritime route to India a definite reality.

Thus at the moment when the Spaniards were taking possession of the
western world the Portuguese were establishing their trade in the
rediscovered East. The two nations agreed to divid