The supposed discovery of Australia about 1530, or somewhat earlier, and
the travels of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto in Japan and the furthest East,
the opening of the trade with China in 1517, and the complete
exploration of Abyssinia, the Prester's kingdom, in 1520, by Alvarez and
the other Catholic missionaries, the millions converted by Francis
Xavier and the Jesuit preachers in Malabar, and the union of the old
native Christian Church of India with the Roman (1599), were other steps
in the same road. All of them, if traced back far enough, bring us to
the Court of Sagres, and the same is true of Spanish and French and
Dutch and English empires in the southern and eastern world. Henry built
for his own nation, but when that nation failed from the exhaustion of
its best blood, other peoples entered upon the inheritance of his work.
But though he was not able himself to see the fulfilment of his plans,
both the method of a South-east passage, and the men who followed it out
to complete success, were his,--his workmanship and his building.
Da Gama, Diego Cam, the Diaz family, and most of the great seamen who
followed the path they had traced, were either "brought up from boyhood
in the Household of the Infant," as the _Chronicle of the Discovery_
tells us of each new figure that comes upon the scene, or looked to him
as their master, owed to the School of Sagres their training, and began
their practical seamanship under his leave and protection.
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