Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/97

 FURTHER PORTUGUESE EXPEDITIONS 57 La Mina on January 19, 1482, " on the following morn- ing they suspended the banner of Portugal from the bough of a lofty tree, at the foot of which they erected an altar, and the whole company assisted at the first mass that was celebrated in Guinea, and prayed for the conversion of the natives from idolatry, and the perpetual prosperity of the church which they intended to erect upon the spot." The baptism of a native prince, or of a few negroes seized or lured on board, seemed to the chroniclers of that age the crowning achievement of exploration. At length in 1486 Bartholemeu Dias, of a family of daring navigators, rounded the southern point of Africa, but far out at sea in a tempest. He reached Algoa Bay on the eastern coast. There his crews lost heart and demanded an immediate return. After a few days' sail further north to the Great Fish River, Dias had to give up his chance of being the discoverer of India. Bidding a sad farewell to the cross which he had erected on the island of Santa Cruz, he turned back. On his way home he sighted the southern headland to which he gave the name of Cabo Tormentoso, the Cape of Storms, but which his master King John II rechris- tened the Cape of Good Hope, as a happy augury that the passage to India was now assured to his nation. Meanwhile two episodes had occurred which deter- mined the future course of maritime discovery. Colum- bus, during his stay in Portugal, 1470 - 1484, married the daughter of one of Prince Henry's commanders, and obtained access to his nautical journals, maps, and