The Land of Prester John - a Chronicle of Portuguese Exploration

THE LAND OF Prester John- A Chronicle of Portuguese Exploration By Elaine Sanceau. Contents include: HOW PORTUGAL SOUGHT PRESTER JOHN Chapter Page 1. THE WANDERING MYTH 3 2. THE LOST FORERUNNER 13 3. THE ODYSSEY OF MATTHEW 20 4. A DREAM IN THE DESERT 35 5. A FRUSTRATED MISSION 46 6. THE IMPROVISED EMBASSY 62 7. PRESTER JOHN AT LAST 76 8. A PROLONGED VISIT 86 PARTII HOW PORTUGAL SAVED PRESTER JOHN 9. THE PATRIARCHS RECRUITS 105 10. DOM GKISIOVAO TO THE RESCOE 117 11 DOM GRISTOVAO AND THE ETHIOPIAN QDEEN 123 12. THE CLASH OF ARMS 133 1 GRANYES REVENGE 142 14. ETHIOPIA DELIVERED 150 vfi Contents III THE PAtflWG OF THE WAYS Uhapter Page 15. HERESY AND SCHISM 165 16. THE BISHOP TAKES A HAND 170 17. WHAT TRAVELLERS TO ABYSSINIA MIGHT EXPECT 184 18. SUCCESS 200 19. THE ALTERNATIVE ROUTE 209 20. ROME VERSUS ALEXANDRIA 217 21. THE END OF A DREAM 229 NOTES 235 CHRONOLOGY 237 BIBLIOGRAPHY 241 MAPS AND ILLUSTRATION Map showing relationship of Portuguese India to the land of Prester John - 40 Map of Abyssinia showing itineraries of Dom Cristovao da Gama and Dom Rodigo de Lima 70 Coasts of the Red Sea in 1513 124. Frontispiece of the first edition of Father Francisco Alvaress book on Ethiopia 156. The modern traveller, lolling time at Estoril while waiting for a passage on the Clipper, does not often give much thought to the country he is passing through. A kindly people, and a sunny sky some bathing, and some golf perhaps a smoke less city drenched in light hanging picturesquely from pre cipitous hills above a broad blue river may well be all that Portugal will stand for in his memory. He is far too apt to for get the world history that was prepared beside these smiling shores. He may not realize that he owes it to Portugal that he should be a modern traveller at aB This blue estuary shining in the sun was the highway that first led ships to the worlds end. The simple courteous people that he sees around descend from pioneers. They are a nation that has lived adventurously and made its mark upon the earth. Its traces may be found over four continents. Portugal has had an African adventure, as witnessed by the batdemented towers she left beside Moroccan beaches, by the names she wrote on the map, and the vast territories of Angola, Mozam bique, and Guinea, where she is mistress still. She had an American adventure too, and founded a great nation on the far shore of the Atlantic to grow amid the riches of the forests and the mountains of Brazil Introduction Her Indian adventure can still be traced today by ruined fortresses at all strategic points around the Indian Ocean, and her language is spoken still throughout the Orient where men of Portuguese descent are found among the native races from East Africa to the spice archipelagoes of the Pacific. There was an Abyssinian adventure as well, of which fewer traces remain a side-line it turned out to be and yet in many ways it was the strangest and the most heroic of all. It was not intended as a side-line when first embarked upon quite the contrary. Henry the Navigator and the kings who continued his task looked to the Christian Empire of Ethiopia as the cornerstone of their great enterprise. To understand their dream we must go back to mediaeval times and remem ber the Holy War waged by Christians against the Moslem hordes, for ever threatening to engulf Europe...