They
Accordingly Measured Back Their Wary Steps Along The African Coast, And
Returned To Portugal, Where They Gave An Account Of Their Proceedings To
Don Henry, In Which, Of Course, The Dangers Of The Newly Discovered Cape
Would Not Be Diminished In Their Narrative[2].
Returning from Ceuta, where his presence was no longer necessary, and
where he had matured his judgment by intercourse with,
Various learned
men whom his bounty had attracted into Africa, and having enlarged his
views by the perusal of every work which tended to illustrate the
discoveries which he projected, Don Henry fixed his residence at the
romantic town of Sagres, in the neighbourhood of Cape St Vincent, where
he devoted his leisure to the study of mathematics, astronomy,
cosmography, and the theory of navigation, and even established a school
or academy for instructing his countrymen in these sciences, the parents
of commerce, and the sure foundations of national prosperity. To assist
him in the prosecution of these his favourite studies, he invited, from
Majorca, a person named Diego, or James, who was singularly skilful in
the management of the instruments then employed for making astronomical
observations at sea, and in the construction of nautical charts. Some
traces of nautical discoveries along the western coast of Africa still
remained in ancient authors; particularly of the reported voyages of
Menelaus, Hanno, Eudoxus, and others. From an attentive consideration of
these, Don Henry and his scientific coadjutor were encouraged to hope for
the accomplishment of important discoveries in that direction; and they
were certainly incited in these views by the rooted enmity which had so
long rankled among the Christian inhabitants of Spain and Portugal
against the Moors, who had formerly expelled their ancestors from the
greatest part of the peninsula, and with whom they had waged an incessant
war of several centuries in recovering the country from their grasp.
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