" They were only to leave behind in Alcacer their
Christian prisoners; for themselves, they might go, with their wives,
their children, and their property.
The stout-hearted veteran Edward Menezes became governor of Alcacer, and
held the town with his own desperate courage against all attempts to
recover it. When the besiegers offered him terms, he offered them in
return his scaling ladders that they might have a fair chance; when they
were raising the siege he sent them a message, Would they not try a
little longer? It had been a very short affair.
Meantime Henry, returning to Europe by way of Ceuta, re-entered his own
town of Sagres for the last time. His work was nearly done, and indeed,
of that work there only remains one thing to notice. The great Venetian
map, known as the Camaldolese Chart of Fra Mauro, executed in the
convent of Murano just outside Venice, is not only the crowning specimen
of mediaeval draughtsmanship, but the scientific review of the Prince's
exploration. As Henry himself closes the middle age of exploration and
begins the modern, so this map, the picture and proof of his
discoveries, is not only the last of the older type of plan, but the
first of the new style--the style which applied the accurate and careful
methods of Portolano-drawing to a scheme of the whole world.
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