The old maps of the fifteenth century show three different countries of
this name--Far India, beyond the Ganges River; Middle India, between the
Ganges and the Indus; and Lesser India, including both sides of the Red
Sea. On the African side of the Red Sea was located the legendary
kingdom of a great monarch known as Prester John. _Prester_ is a
shortening of Presbyter, for this John was a Christian priest as well as
a king. Ever since the twelfth century there had been stories circulated
through Europe about the enormously wealthy monarch who ruled over a
vast number of Christians "in the Indies." At first Prester John's
domain was supposed to be in Asia; later the legends shifted it over to
Africa, Abyssinia probably; and it was with this division of "India"
that the Portuguese Prince Henry hoped to establish a trade; not, at
first, by rounding Africa and sailing up its east coast to Abyssinia,
but by merely cruising down the coast of Western Africa till Abyssinia's
Atlantic shores were reached; for so vague was the geography of that
far-away day that Abyssinia was supposed to stretch from Ethiopia to the
Atlantic. "If," reasoned Prince Henry, "my sailors can feel their way
down Africa till they come to Prester John's territory, not only could
our nation secure the rich trade which now goes to the Moors, but we
could form a treaty with the African Christians and ask them to come to
Europe and help us should the Moors ever again advance against us.
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