Whoe'er Would Pass The Cape Of Non
Shall Turn Again; Or Else Be Gone.
The success of this earliest voyage, fitted out for the purpose of
discovery, is not recorded; but Don Henry continued to send some vessels
every year to the same coast, with the same instructions of endeavouring
to explore the coast beyond Cape Non.
Not daring to trust themselves
beyond sight of land, the mariners crept timorously along the coast, and
at length reached Cape Bojador, only sixty leagues, or 180 miles beyond
Cape Non. This cape, which stretches boldly out into the ocean, from
which circumstance it derives its name[1], filled the Portuguese mariners
with terror and amazement; owing to the shoals by which it is environed
for the space of six leagues, being perpetually beaten by a lofty and
tremendous surge, which precluded them, from all possibility of
proceeding beyond it in their ordinary manner of creeping along the coast;
and they dared not to stretch out into the open sea in quest of smoother
water, lest, losing sight of land altogether, they might wander in the
trackless ocean, and be unable to find their way home. It is not
impossible that they might contemplate the imaginary terrors of the
torrid zone, as handed down from some of the ancients, with all its
burning soil and scorching vapours; and they might consider the
difficulties of Cape Bojador as a providential bar or omen, to warn and
oppose them against proceeding to their inevitable destruction.
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