Tercera
Was Given To Jacome De Brujes In 1450, By Don Henry, In Which Year St
George Was Discovered.
Pico and Gracioso were discovered about the same
time.
Perhaps Fayal may actually have been first explored, as many of the
inhabitants are of Flemish descent, under the command and protection of
the Portuguese. Flores and Corvo, which lie seventy leagues west from
Tercera, are not reckoned among the Acores by some writers. In this
latter island, the Portuguese pretend that there was discovered an
equestrian statue made from one block of stone. The head of the man was
bare, his left hand rested on the mane of his horse, and his right
pointed towards the _west_, as if indicating the situation of another
continent. In addition to all this, an inscription appeared to have been
traced on a rock beneath the statue, but in a language which the
Portuguese did not understand.
In the slow progress of discovery, the perils endured by the officers and
men employed by Don Henry, from the Moors and Negroes, frequently
occasioned murmurs against his plans of discovery; but the several
clusters of islands, the Madeiras, Cape Verd, and Acores, formed a
succession of maritime and commercial colonies, and nurseries for seamen,
which took off from the general obloquy attending the tedious and
hitherto unsuccessful attempts to penetrate farther into the southern
hemisphere, and afforded a perpetual supply of navigators, and a stimulus
to enterprize. The original prejudices against the possibility of
navigating or existing in the torrid zone still subsisted, and although
the navigators of Don Henry had gradually penetrated to within ten
degrees of the equator, yet the last successive discovery was always held
forth by the supporters of ignorant prejudice, as that which had been
placed by nature as an insurmountable barrier to farther progress in the
Atlantic.
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