The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1874-11-14
HONOLULU, HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. NOVEMBER IA. 1874.

80 @NN0A4
and evidences of which were preserved BY
the noble Dame Perestrello and her daughter
we then can form some opinion of the value
of the knowledge and inspiration which
Columbus derived from his union with the
fair Phillipa Perestrello, in conceiving and
carrying out the discovery of a new world
HENRY's PASSION FOR DISCOVERY.
The devotion of our Hlustrious Prince 10
the purpose of research and to enlarge the
knowledge of our earth, would be remark
able in this day and how marvellous must
his character appear, when we consider that
his genius shone alone amid the darkness of
an Ignorant, brutal and bigoted age. His
desire to penetrate beyond the dark bounds
of the then supposed impossible ocean be-
came n passion that possessed his soul and
occupied his very dreams, like a pure, great
and ardent love. The memory and admo-
milton of his noble inspiring mother were
never out of his heart and it was her spirit
that had kindled and continued TO prompt
his genius. 1t is recorded by Mattheo and
others, that often as he wandered medita-
lively along by the brink of the bold bluffs
OF Saeres on the coast of Algarve, he would
pause in his walk, and looking westward
across the rolling waters Of the Atlantic, he
would seem by his wistful gaze and impas-
stoned gesture to be yearning like an anxious
lover to behold some object that lay beyond
the great wavy desert before him, and that
object was some fair new land in western
seas, not yet seen By European eyes.
CoNcEIvEs THE IDEA OF A NEW WORLD.
Castaheda and other authors of the six
teenth century state distinctly, and the Able
Provost, early in the eighteenth century, in
his great work, Historic GGnerale des Voy-
ages, repeats, that Henry originated and or
ganized ocean navigation, solely with the
view to discover new lands and a new
world. II His intelligent estimate of the form
and dimensions and general character of the
terraqueous globe, convinced his observant
and president mind, that the vast ocean
must embrace within its extent great spaces
of terra irma not yet known; and he doubt
ed not from his calculations in respect to the
extent of the earth's circumference, that
there must be a mighty space between Eu-
rope and India westward, where interven.
ing Islands or continents must be found.
But it must be stated that Henry's ruling
idea was to reach India by sea by sailing
around the continent of Africa.
H AGE OF A
And when our young Princel2 so thought
and planned, as the Apostle of Discovery,
and as the first mathematician of his time,
all others of his rank and of that period
were solely interested in the panoply and
butchery of real or mock war. During the
Princes youth, his countryman Vasco de
Lobeira, who was knighted by Henry's
father after the great victory of Aljubarotta
had inf1amed the heart of young Europe
with the romance of Amadis de Gaul,-and
the rash and senseless adventures of the
knight Grant Amadis,-of Galaor the "son
of the sea-, - of Lisuarte, and of Oriana the
50 peerless lady" were then of infinitely more
interest and consequence to the noble youth
of those days, than anything that the stars,
or the ocean, or the whole universe could
unfold. And the genius and noble spirit of
Henry in opposing the idle spirit of chivalry,
which perhaps had IFS value in a lawless
age. sought to correct by rational enterprise
that which the wit of Cervantes in Don
Quixotte ultimately cured.
THE COMPASS, THE QUADRANT, n H CHART.
The son of Phillipa alone in his day
watched the seas and studied the heavens,
to find out new pathways leading TO new
regions Of the globe. He was among the
foremost 10 conceive the advantage of the
magnet to enab bic the mariner to strike cut
boldly into the open sea, and no longer
timorouslv hug a visible coast; and so he
first brought the compass into practical use
for navigation. His observations OF heaven
ly bodies led the way TO the perfecting of
the astrolabe by Rodrigo, Joseph and Be-
hem, during the reign of his grand nephew,
John H., which was practically as available
for celestial observation as the quadrant now
in use. And 10 order to preserve a record
of all observations at sea, and of discoveries
of lands, Henry organized at Ternaubal on
the headlands of Cape Sagres, the first OBJ
servatory in the world. in which he was as
sisted by a corps of skiliful geographers and
cosmographers, who there drew the first ma
zine charts as aids to navigation. In conse-
quence of all these efforts and acquisitions
to promote navigation this great Prince has
been preeminently named.
HENRY THE NAVIGATOR"
What could have fed the enthusiasm of
such n soul, TO contemplate so ardently en-
t~erprises and adventures that were utterly
condemned by the spirit of his age! The
ignorant objections which Columbus encoun-
tered at Salamanca were advanced knowl-
edge, when compared with the gross, sodden
superstition that stood in the way of Henry.
His purpose of sailing beyond Cape Non,
the limit of European adventure, west of
the Straits of Gibraltar, and to pass into the
torrid regions beyond was considered a sac
religious invasion of awful CULTS of sea and
of desert wastes of land reserved as a mys-
ferrous retreat for invisible powers. Henry
could not in consequence OF this ignorance
and opposition, even in the highest places,
obtain from his own brother on the throne,
who had spent his time in sports ard
parades, the slightest help in order to prose-
cute his designs but fortunately he was not
a poor %adventurer like Columbus, to weary
out his soul by toadying around an Ignorant
and an unappreciative court he had an.
income of some consequence derived from
the territorial gifts of mis- royal father, as
Duke of Viseo and Lord of Corvilhao, given