instantly set the Portuguese king thinking about Prester John, of whom
legends spoke as a Christian king ruling over a Christian nation somewhere
in what was vaguely called the Indies; and the search after whom is, in
maritime discovery, what the alchemist's pursuit after the philosopher's
stone was in chemistry. The king concluded that this "greater power" must
be Prester John; and accordingly Bartholomew Diaz and two other captains
were sent out on further discovery. They did not find Prester John, but
made their way southwards along a thousand and fifty miles of new coast,
as far as a cape which, from experience, they called Cape Stormy, but
which their master, seeing in its discovery an omen of better things,
renamed as the Cape of Good Hope.


BARTHOLOMEW COLUMBUS.

It is a fact of great historical interest, and a singular link between
African and American discovery, that Bartholomew Columbus, brother of
Christopher, was engaged in this voyage. The authority for this important
statement is Las Casas, who says that he found, in a book belonging to
Christopher Columbus, being one of the works of Cardinal Aliaco, a note
"in Bartholomew Colon's handwriting," (which he knew well, having several
of the letters and papers concerning the expedition in his own
possession), which note gives a short account, in bad Latin, of the
voyage, mentions the degree of latitude of the Cape, and concludes with
the words "in quibus omnibus interfui."


PASSAGE IN THE "LUSIADAS"

In fiction, too, this voyage of Bartholomew Diaz was very notable, as