South Africa - Paperback

by Ian Colvin (Author)

This is a history of South Africa that starts with the Age of Discovery and the European exploration of the region. From the intro: "If we would understand how South Africa came to be discovered, we must go back a very long time-to the days before either England or Holland was a power on the sea. Every one has heard of Christopher Columbus, and most people know the name of Vasco da Gama; but not so many, perhaps, realise the springs of action that led these sailors to make their great voyages, and some may be surprised to hear that the search for the road to the Indies was a move in the great struggle between the Cross and the Crescent, and Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama were just as much Crusaders as Richard Coeur de Lion. In the middle of the fifteenth century Portugal was engaged in a truceless war with the Moors of North Africa. In this, the little country was only taking a part in the general war between Christians and Mahomedans that was waged all along the Mediterranean from east to west. Spain also took part in it, and so did Genoa and Venice, and the Knights of St. John at Malta, and even little England away in the rear of Christendom, sent her troops to defend the frontier. In those days Christendom was one nation, with one emperor and one pope, and all the European peoples knew that the war concerned not the part but the whole. For the Crescent had penetrated into Europe as far as France, and the Holy Sepulchre, which was then the shrine of all Christians, was in the hands of the Infidels. In their part of the battlefield the Portuguese carried on a desperate war. They sent army after army into the north of Africa, they took the Moorish town of Ceuta, but they were beaten back from the walls of Tangier. Scimitar against sword, both sides fought with desperate valour, and the deeds of the heroes are still remembered in song and legend. On the Christian side, among the chief of these paladins was Prince Henry, one of the Royal Infants of Portugal."