[4] According to the authors of the Modern Universal History.  B. VIII. ch.
    i. sect. 3.  Uzun-Hassan had seven sons:  Ogurlu Mohammed, Khahil Mirza,
    Maksud beg, Jakub beg, Masih beg, Yusuf beg, and Zegnel.  Contarini
    strangely corrupts almost every name that occurs.  Uzun-Hassan, he
    makes Unsuncassan; Ogurlu Mohammed, Gurlu mamech; Kalil mirza, Sultan
    chali; Yakub beg, Lacubei; Maksud beg, or Masih beg, Masubech; and
    omits three of the seven.—­E.

[5] Uzun-Hassan is said to have been defeated in battle by the Turks, in
    1471, near Arzenjan.—­Mod.  Univ.  Hist.  VI. 113.

CHAPTER III.

VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY BY THE PORTUGUESE ALONG THE WESTERN COAST OF AFRICA,
DURING THE LIFE, AND UNDER THE DIRECTION OF DON HENRY.[1]

INTRODUCTION.

The knowledge possessed by the ancients respecting India, will be the subject of discussion in a future portion of this work.  We have now to contemplate the tedious, yet finally successful efforts of the Portuguese nation, in its age of energetic heroism, to discover a maritime passage to that long famed commercial region, some general knowledge of which had been preserved ever since the days of the Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires.  Of all the great events which have occurred in the modern ages, previous to our own times, the voyages and discoveries which were made by the Europeans, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of the Christian era, are justly entitled to preference, whether we appreciate the vast improvements which they made in navigation, and, consequently, in commerce,—­the astonishing abundance of wealth which they brought into Europe,—­the surprising feats of bravery which were performed in their various expeditions and conquests,—­the extensive, populous, and valuable territories which were subdued or colonized,—­or the extended knowledge, which was suddenly acquired of the greater part of the earth, till then either altogether unknown, or very partially and erroneously described.  By these discoveries, we allude to those of the southern and western hemispheres, a new heaven and a new earth were opened up to the astonishment of mankind, who may be said to have been then furnished with wings to fly from one end of the earth to the other, so as to bring the most distant, and hitherto utterly unknown nations, acquainted with each other.  In the ordinary course of human affairs, it has been observed that similar events frequently occur; but the transactions of these times which we now propose to narrate, were as singular in their kind as they were great, surprising, and unexpected; neither can any such ever happen again, unless Providence were to create new and accessible worlds for discovery and conquest, or to replunge the whole of mankind for a long period into the grossest ignorance.