year they advanced farther, until at last they achieved
a momentous result. In 1487, Bartholomew Diaz sailed
round the southern point of Africa, which received the
significant name of the 'Cape of Good Hope,' and entered
the Indian Ocean. Henceforth a water pathway to the Far
East was possible. Following Diaz, Vasco da Gama, leaving
Lisbon in 1497, sailed round the south of Africa, and,
reaching the ports of Hindustan, made the maritime route
to India a definite reality.

Thus at the moment when the Spaniards were taking
possession of the western world the Portuguese were
establishing their trade in the rediscovered East. The
two nations agreed to divide between them these worlds
of the East and the West. They invoked the friendly
offices of the Pope as mediator, and, henceforth, an
imaginary line drawn down the Atlantic divided the
realms. At first this arrangement seemed to give Spain
all the new regions in America, but the line of division
was set so far to the West that the discovery of Brazil,
which juts out eastward into the Atlantic, gave the
Portuguese a vast territory in South America. At the
time of which we are now speaking, however, the
Portuguese were intent upon their interests in the
Orient. Their great aim was to pass beyond India,
already reached by da Gama, to the further empires of
China and Japan. Like other navigators of the time, they
thought that these places might be reached not merely by
southern but also by the northern seas. Hence it came
about that the Portuguese, going far southward in