Sailing with "two little friggits," each of fifty tons burden, in the
belief that ships which sailed down the coast of Guinea might be sure of
reaching the end of the continent, by persisting to the south, Diaz, in
one voyage of sixteen months, performed the main task which Henry
seventy years ago had set before his nation.
Passing Walvisch Bay and the farthest pillar of Diego Cam, he reached a
headland where he set up his first new pillar at what is still known as
Diaz Point. Still coasting southwards and tacking frequently, he passed
the Orange River, the northern limit of the present Cape Colony. Then
putting well out to sea Diaz ran thirteen days before the wind due
south, hoping by this wide sweep to round the southern point of the
continent, which could not now be far off. Finding the cold become
almost Arctic and buffeted by tremendous seas, he changed his course to
east, and then as no land appeared after five days, to north. The first
land seen was a bay where cattle were feeding, now called Flesh Bay,
which Diaz named from the cows and cowherds he saw there. After putting
ashore two natives, some of those lately carried from Guinea or Congo to
Portugal, and sent out again to act as scouts for the European colonies,
the ships sailed east, seeking in vain for the land's end, till they
found the coast tend gradually but steadily towards the north.
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