by Barros and the
historians who followed him Dinis Fernandez, sought employment from the
Infante, and, being intrusted by him with the command of a vessel,
pushed boldly down the coast, and passed the river Sanaga (Senegal),
which divides the Azeneghis--whom the first discoverers always called
Moors--from the negroes of Jalof. The inhabitants were much astonished
at the presence of the Portuguese vessel on their coasts, and at first
took it for a fish or a bird or a phantasm; but when in their rude
boats--hollowed logs--they neared it, and saw that there were men in it,
judiciously concluding that it was a more dangerous thing than fish or
bird or phantasm, they fled. Dinis Fernandez, however, captured four of
them off that coast, but as his object was discovery, not slave-hunting,
he went on till he discovered Cape Verd, and then returned to his
country, to be received with much honor and favor by Prince Henry. These
four negroes taken by Dinis Fernandez were the first taken in their own
country by the Portuguese. That the Prince was still engaged in high
thoughts of discovery and conversion we may conclude from observing that
he rewarded and honored Dinis Fernandez as much as if he had brought him
large booty; for the Prince "thought little of whatever he could do for
those who came to him with these signs and tokens of another greater
hope which he entertained."

In this case, as in others, we should do great injustice if we supposed
that Prince Henry had any of the pleasure of a slave-dealer in obtaining
these negroes: it is far more probable that he valued them as persons
capable of furnishing intelligence, and, perhaps, of becoming
interpreters, for his future expeditions. Not that, without these
especial motives, he would have thought it anything but great gain for a
man to be made a slave, if it were the means of bringing him into
communion with the Church.

After this, several expeditions, which did not lead to much, occupied
the Prince's time till 1447. In that year a fleet, large for those
times, of fourteen vessels, was fitted out at Lagos by the people there,
and the command given by Prince Henry to Lancarote. The object seems to
have been, from a speech that is recorded of Lancarote's, to make war
upon the Azeneghi Moors, and especially to take revenge for the defeat
before mentioned which Gonsalvo de Cintra suffered in 1445 near Cape
Blanco. That purpose effected, Lancarote went southward, extending the