The Portuguese knew little of the fifth archipelago, because the inhabitants were ignorant of commerce, and totally savage and uncultivated.  From the description given of them by the early Portuguese writers, as totally unacquainted with any metal, making use of the teeth of fish in its stead, and as being as black as the Caffres of Africa, while among them there were some of an unhealthy white colour, whose eyes were so weak that they could not bear the light of the sun;—­from these particulars there can be no doubt that the Portuguese had discovered New Guinea, and the adjacent isles, to whose inhabitants this description exactly applies.  These islands were the limit of the Portuguese discoveries to the East:  they suspected, however, that there were other islands beyond them, and that these ranged along a great southern continent, which stretched as far as the straits of Magellan.  It is the opinion of some geographers, and particularly of Malte Brun, that the Portuguese had visited the coasts of New Holland before the year 1540; but that they regarded it as part of the great southern continent, the existence of which Ptolemy had first imagined.

We have already alluded to the obstacles which opposed and retarded the commercial intercourse of the Portuguese with China.  Notwithstanding these, they prosecuted their discoveries in the Chinese seas.  In the year 1518, they arrived at the isles of Liqueou, where they found gold in abundance:  the inhabitants traded as far as the Moluccas.  Their intercourse with Japan has already been noticed.

From these results of the grand project formed by Prince Henry, and carried on by men animated by his spirit, (results so important to geography and commerce, and which mainly contributed to raise Europe to its present high rank in knowledge, civilization, wealth, and power,) we must now turn to the discovery of America, the second grand cause in the production of the same effects.

For the discovery of the new world we are indebted to Columbus.  This celebrated person was extremely well qualified for enterprizes that required a combination of foresight, comprehension, decision, perseverance, and skill.  From his earliest youth he had been accustomed to regard the sea as his peculiar and hereditary element; for the family, from which he was descended, had been navigators for many ages.  And though, from all that is known respecting them, this line of life had not been attended with much success or emolument, yet Columbus’s zeal was not thereby damped; and his parents, still anxious that their son should pursue the same line which his ancestors had done, strained every nerve to give him a suitable education.  He was accordingly taught geometry, astronomy, geography, and drawing.  As soon as his time of life and his education qualified him for the business he had chosen, he went to sea; he was then fourteen years old.  His first voyages were from Genoa, of which city he was a native, to different