Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/664

 608 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE Turks made conditions harder for merchants and travelers; and, most important of all, the Mongol Empire had lost its control of China and then had broken up into contending parts. Tamerlane had done trade and economic prosperity in Persia and other lands great damage. By the latter half of the fifteenth century the Golden Horde had lost its hold on Russia. Trade from the East became practically limited to the southern sea routes from the Indian Ocean by way of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. These routes were controlled by Mohammedan traders and during the overland passage from the heads of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, the wares were subject to several expensive reloadings and duties. Even in the case of what might seem the short carry from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, the goods were first landed at a port in the peninsula of Mount Sinai, then transported by land to Cairo, then transferred to boats and taken down the Nile to Rosetta, then loaded on camels again and carried to Alexandria. At each stop- ping-place such heavy duties were levied that by the time the goods reached the Mediterranean the price had quad- rupled. Evidently an immense saving and profit would be effected by any one who discovered an all-sea route from European ports to Malacca and Calicut, the two chief em- poriums of the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, the work of maritime exploration and dis- covery, which during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- Prince turies had been chiefly carried on by Italians, Henry the was continued by the Portuguese, especially Navigator e. .* . J c ■ w, , • alter their conquest from the Mohammedans in 1415 of the important African port, Ceuta. Under the di- rection of one of the king's younger sons, Prince Henry ( I 394~ I 4 6o )> the island groups in the Atlantic were re- visited and settled, and expeditions were dispatched farther and farther south down the west coast of the African con- tinent. As governor of the Portuguese military Order of Christ, Prince Henry was aiming to do in the Atlantic what the Teutonic Knights had accomplished in the Baltic; namely, to convert heathen natives to Christianity and to