For several years thereafter the
town was left in charge of the youngest of these princes, Henry, who there
acquired an enduring desire to gain for Portugal and Christianity the
regions whence the northbound caravans were coming. Returning home, he
fixed his residence at the promontory of Sagres, on Cape St. Vincent,
and made his main interest for forty years the promotion of maritime
exploration southward.[8] His perseverance won him fame as "Prince
Henry the Navigator," though he was not himself an active sailor; and
furthermore, after many disappointments, it resulted in exploration as far
as the Gold Coast in his lifetime and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope
twenty-five years after his death. The first decade of his endeavor brought
little result, for the Sahara shore was forbidding and the sailors timid.
Then in 1434 Gil Eannes doubled Cape Bojador and found its dangers
imaginary. Subsequent voyages added to the extent of coast skirted until
the desert began to give place to inhabited country. The Prince was now
eager for captives to be taken who might inform him of the country, and in
1441 Antam Gonsalvez brought several Moors from the southern edge of the
desert, who, while useful as informants, advanced a new theme of interest
by offering to ransom themselves by delivering on the coast a larger number
of non-Mohammedan negroes, whom the Moors held as slaves.
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