Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/78

 66 WEST AFRICA. a Genoese fleet had reached the archipelago ; and Lanzarote was the name of the Genoese conqueror (Lanzaroto Marocello) whose family was one of the most powerful in the republic, from the beginning of the twelfth to the end of the sixteenth century. This family was itself of JYorman origin, and when the Kormans, under Bethencourt, occupied Lanzarote in 1402, they there found " an old castle formerly built by Lancelot Maloesel, as is said." During the fourteenth century the Canaries were frequently visited by Europeans, either as pirates or here shipwrecked, and a chart dating from 1351 presents an exact outline of the archipelago, with the names still current, Teneriffe alone excepted, which was called " Hell Island," on account of its burning mountain. The European kings had already begun to contend for these oceanic lands, and in 1344 Pope Clement VI presented them to one of his favourites, Luis de la Cerda, whom he named " Prince of Fortune ; " but the new sovereign lacked the means needed to enabje him to take possession of his kingdom. All the expeditions to these waters, even those of the Italians Angiolino di Tagghia and Nicolosi di Kecco for Alfonso IV. of Portugal, were still made for plunder, and not for conquest. As says the local chronicle : " Lancelot was once very thickly peopled, but the Spaniards and other sea-robbers have oftentimes taken and carried them away into bondage." No actual conquest was attempted till 1402, when the Norman Jean de Bethencourt landed on Lanzarote with fifty men. He was well received by the people ; but internal discord, the want of provisions, and a bootless excursion to Fuerteventura, would have caused a total failure had Bethencourt not offered the suzerainty to the King of Castillo in return for men and supplies. Thanks to this help he was enabled to occupy Fuerteventura in 1404, and Ferro (Hierro) in 1405 ; but his expeditions to the other islands were defeated, and Gomera alone was added to the European possessions by his successor. The valiant resistance of the natives was not finally overcome until the King of Spain had formally decreed the annexation of the archipelago as an integral part of his states, and had undertaken the conquest by regular military armaments. Thus were reduced Palma and Great Canary in 1493, and Teno- riffe in 1497, when the menceys, or kinglets, hounded down like wild beasts, were captured, baptised, and led in triumph to the King of Castillo for the amusement of the court. The conquest had occupied altogether nearly a cen- tury. But other lands were still supposed to exist farther west, and in 1519 the King of Portugal yielded to Spain the undiscovered island, which, however, a first expedition in 152G failed to find. The belief in its existence still lingered on even after further efforts were made to discover it by the Spaniards in 1570, 1604, and 1721, and by the Portuguese from the Azores. At last it was concluded that this phantom island was only a mirage of Palma, which it resembled in outline, produced on the western horizon by the refraction of the moist air brought by the west winds ; in any case the seas had already been explored in every direction, so that further researches became useless. Yet the legend still survives, and the few adherents of the Sebastianist sect, who await the return of the Portu-