. European history : an outline of its development. ca, I.,Chap. IV. Some new non-Mediterranean route to India must be dis-covered, or the hope of sharing in the riches of the Easterntrade must be given up. Long before the beginning of the fifteenth century medi-eval commerce had begun to adventure out into the Atlan-tic, though it wasstill timid, afraid ofstrange dangers, andrarely bold enoughto go out of sight ofland. The magneticneedle had becomeknown in the West,probably as early asthe twelfth century,but its most impor-tant application tothe art of navigationwas not yet fully un-derstood.
. European history : an outline of its development. ca, I.,Chap. IV. Some new non-Mediterranean route to India must be dis-covered, or the hope of sharing in the riches of the Easterntrade must be given up. Long before the beginning of the fifteenth century medi-eval commerce had begun to adventure out into the Atlan-tic, though it wasstill timid, afraid ofstrange dangers, andrarely bold enoughto go out of sight ofland. The magneticneedle had becomeknown in the West,probably as early asthe twelfth century,but its most impor-tant application tothe art of navigationwas not yet fully un-derstood. The firstgreat discoveries ofthe fifteenth centurywere made by ex-plorers who still creptalong the coast andwere unwilling to losesight of it for anylong period. 259. The Portu-guese Discoveries. —These first discover-ies were those of thePortuguese along thewest coast of began perhaps in the desire of the nation to con-tinue its conquests from the Moors in northwestern Africa,since further conquests in the Spanish peninsula were no. Armor of Columbus (The Arsenal, Madrid) §26o] ColII nib us 275 longer possible ou account of the expansion of Castile,which had reached the Atlantic south of Portugal. Itwas soon found, however, that there were profitable arti-cles of commerce to be had in Africa, and the Portuguesewere attracted further down the coast. The classical tra-dition of a passage around Africa was revived, and beforelong the Portuguese became possessed with the ambitionof reaching India by this route. This direction was largely given to their efforts by a princeof their royal family. Prince Henry the Navigator. He tookup his residence on the retired promontory of Cape , collected all the information that he could, madehimself familiar with the best scientific knowledge of histime, and gave his life to encouraging the explorations ofhis countrymen toward the south. Prince Henry did not live to see the final success of hisplans. Progress was very
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