HE Early History of Natal

CHAPTER I

The Early Days

HEN Natal was first seen and named by Vasco da Gama the course from Europe to India by sea was still unknown. The discovery of that course had been the objeet of several voyages along the Western coast of Afriea, undertaken at an earlier date by direetion of the Portuguese Government. From these the navigators had returned without sueeess, and (distrusting the reports then eurrent in Lisbon derived from Arab seamen) without any eonfidenee that the African con- tinent did not extend southwards to the pole. Diaz, indeed, had gone beyond the Cape of Good Hope as far as the Great Fish River in Kaffraria ; but he was unconseious of the faet that the ocean in an easterly direetion now lay unobstrueted before him, and he steered back to Portugal in 1487 without attaining the great purpose of the expedition. Ten years later, 1497, Vasco, doubling the Cape, feit his way along the land to the east and north-east. On Christmas day he passed near the shores of the country which, in honour of the Nativity, he called the " Land of Natal," but he did not enter the harbour, or touch at any point on the coast. Proceeding onward, he reached Melinda, between which port and Southern India trading vessels had for many centuries crossed the sea. A less cireuitous route to India soon suggested itself. This having once been found, there was little inducement to steer far along the African coast after passing Cape Point ; and for nearly two centuries Natal was rarely—and only accidently—visited by mariners.