Christianity was introduced into Africa in the earliest clays, and the North African Church was a recognized division of the Christian Church in the second century, and when a synod of this Church was held in 258 it was attended by 87 bishops. Its chief city was Carthage. Three names in this Church are prominent: TertuMan (third century). the first to employ the Latin language in the service of Christianity; Cyprian (third century). Bishop of Carthage, and one of the great ecclesiastics of the early Church; and Augustine (fifth eentury). Bishop of Hippo. the greatest of the Latin fathers. The earliest translation of the Bible into Latin was made in North Africa, and it was the battle ground of the famous fights with heretics and schismatics, such as Donatists, Pelagians. and Montanists. But the Church was destined to have a short life. Undermined by formalism and apathy. it fell beneath The Mohammedan on slaught in the seventh century. During the Germanic invasions the Vandals grasped the African provinces, and in the early medie val period much that had heen known to Ptolemy and the geographers who preceded him was forgotten. The maps of Ptolemy, representing the knowledge of the second Chris tian century, indicate the course and sources of the Nile and the mountains of \Vest Cen tral Africa more accurately than they were again shown on maps hefore the middle of the nineteenth century. What Europe was forget ting, the Arabs, in the advance of the Moham medan power. rediscovered. From Arabia the new faith spread rapidly westward along the southern shores of the Mediterranean and inland across the desert. It took such deep root in Northern Africa that the Christian religion, which in many places was then well established, has never been able to regain a real foothold among the native races.
.Northern Africa became a battle ground dur ing the later Crusades and all the succeeding struggles on the Mediterranean between Cross and Crescent, and was the scene of changes and strife among, rival Mohammedan dynasties: but ignorance of the rest of the continent only deep ened with the centuries, except among the Arabs, who occasionally pushed their expeditions south ward. If traditions may be believed, Norman vessels from Dieppe visited the Gold Coast as early as 1364, and in ]413 the Normans built a fort at Elmina. There is eeither inherent improbability in this story near sat isfactory evidence to prove it, but it is probable that Norman voyagers found their way to the West African coast at a very early period. In 1402 Jean de Mstheneourt sailed from La Rochelle and established a settlement on Lan zarote, one of the Canary Islands. During the next three years he extended his sway over the natives of the neighboring islands. Although his expedition is sometimes spoken of as the be ginning of modern African discovery, the ac counts of it show conclusively that the islands were already comparatively well known. indeed, 136theneourt seems to have started with some sort of a grant from the King of Castile. Long before, in 1344. the Pope had granted the islands to a scion of the royal house of Castile, Don Luis de la Cerda, who had taken the title of Prince of Fortune. i.e., of the Fortunate Islands. This same year, 1344, is given as the date for the discovery of Madeira. In that year, so the talc goes, a young Englishman, Robert Machin, eloped with Anne d'Arfet, or Dorset, a woman of noble birth, and sailed away with her for France, hut contrary winds carried them to the island of Madeira. There the lovers died; but one of the company returned to Portugal. and the report of his adventures served to guide the captains of Prince Henry, who rediscovered the island in 1419.
The real opening of Africa to the knowledge of the modern world began with Prince Henry of Portugal (q.v.), called the Navigator. In 1415 he participated in the victorious campaign of Por tugal against the Moorish citadel of Ceuta and his interest was awakened by the enigma of the unknown continent. On his return he devoted himself to the task of sending expedition after expedition down the African coast to determine the extent of the continent, and to find, if pos sible, a way to the east around it. These expe
ditions crept further and further southward. In 1445 an exploring party started from the mouth of the Rio d'Ouro and spent seven months in the interior. Gil Eannes passed beyond Cape Bo jador, the "bulging cape," off which the Atlantic currents ran so strong as to bar all previous at tempts at progress. to 1441 a vessel brought hack some Moorish captives; a year later two of these captives were exchanged for ten negro slaves and some gold dust—and the demoralizing trade which was to characterize West Africa for nearly four centuries was fairly begun. The Bay of Arguin was reached in 1443, and the next year a syndicate, or company, the first of the many that have exploited the Slave Coast, was organ ized at Lagos. In 1445 Diniz Dias passed the month of the Senegal, discovered Cape Verde, and returned to Portugal with four negroes taken from their own country, previous importations having been secured by exchange with the Moors. The next year Nuflo Tristilo reached the Gambia, where he was killed, with most of his followers, by the natives. Ten years later, 1455 and 1456, Cada Mosto (q.v.) explored the river and dis covered the Cape Verde Islands. The impulse given to exploration by Prince Henry continued after his death, which occurred in 1460. Pedro de Cintra, in 1462, added the coast as far as Sierra Leone and Cape Mesurado to the Po•tu guese claims. In 1471 Santarem and Eseobar carried the Portuguese flag across the equator. Commerce, meanwhile, was familiarizing pilots and the makers of sailing charts with the details of the coast. The search for new centres of profitable trade went on, and in 1484 Diego Cam passed the Congo and heard from the na tives tales which seemed to confirm the old story of Prester John (q.v.), a Christian king ruling somewhere beyond the wall of Mohammedanism with which Europe was surrounded. It has been supposed by some that the King of Abyssinia was the subject of this legend. The Portuguese king determined to communicate with this unknown Christian brother, and in July, 1487, sent Bar tholomen Dias (q.v.) with two ships of some fifty tons and a smaller tender to carry his mes sage. From the Congo. Dias beat down to Cape Voltas, near the mouth of the Orange River. Thence he was driven by storm southward for thirteen days, after which he steered north and east in the hope of regaining land. He sighted the southern coast of Africa, near the Gouritz River, at Vleesch Bay. Keeping on toward the cast, he landed on an island in Algoa Bay, still known as Santa Cruz, or St. Croix, from the cross which Ile set up there. When he reached the mouth of the Great Fish River, long the boun dary of Cape Colony, the patience of his crews gave out and they forced him to put about for home. On the return journey he sighted, first of modern sailors, the great landmark which has appropriated the generic name of The Cape. Dias christened it the Stormy Cape (Cabo Tormen toso), but on his return in December, 14SS, the King (or, according to Christopher Columbus, Dias himself) gave it the more cheering name of the Cape of Good Hope.
While Dias was rounding the Cape, the King, fearing lest his vessels might fail to reach Prester John, sent another message to that potentate, overland, by Pedro de CoviIhilo and Alfonso de Payva. From Aden, in Arabia, Payva made his way to Abyssinia, where he was killed, while Covilhao went eastward to India. From Goa Cavilhi'io sailed to Sofala, in Eastern Africa, where he gathered news of Madagascar, and satisfied himself that it would be possible to go around to the western side of Africa by water. His report reached Portugal in 1490, but it was seven years before Vasco da Gama (q.v.) proved its correctness, in November, 1407. Start ing from Lisbon, he doubled the Cape, and after encountering storm and tempest and the southern sweep of the Mozambique current, sighted, on Christmas Day. 1497, the land which still bears the name he gave it in honor of the day—Natal. After touching at 'Mozambique and Mombasa, he arrived on Easter at Melinda, where he found a pilot who took him across to India. The land was sighted on May 17, 1498, and three days later Da Gama anchored off Calieut.