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 Rh CHAPTER XI.

have seen how the Portuguese had slowly coasted along the shore of Africa during the fifteenth century in search of a way to the Indies. By the end of the century mariners' portulanos gave a rude yet effective account of the littoral of Africa, both on the west and the eastern side. Not alone did they explore the coast, but they settled upon it. At Amina on the Guinea coast, at Loando near the Congo, and at Benguela on the western coast, they established stations whence to despatch the gold and ivory, and, above all, the slaves, which turned out to be the chief African products of use to Europeans. On the east coast they settled at Sofala, a port of Mozambique; and in Zanzibar they possessed no less than three ports, those first visited by Vasco da Gama and afterwards celebrated by Milton in the sonorous line contained in the gorgeous geographical excursus in the Eleventh Book—

It is probable that, besides settling on the coast, the Portuguese from time to time made exploration into the interior. At any rate, in some maps of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there is shown a remarkable knowledge of the course of the Nile. We get it terminated in three large lakes, which can be scarcely other than the