PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR 189
But while emphasizing these other sides of his character, we must not overlook Prince Henry as a true lover of science, always actuated by an unquenchable desire to find out the secrets of the earth from the time when, at twenty years of age, he is said to have sent Gonzalo Velho beyond the Canaries to learn the cause of the swift currents of the sea.
Talent de Men /aire, The desire to do well, was his motto. No man ever chose a motto of more singular propriety, and no man ever lived up to it more faithfully than did Prince Henry the Navigator.
Rightly is he numbered among those who by valiant deeds have freed themselves from the law of death.
- ' — aquelles que por obras valerosas
Se vao da lei da morte libertando." ^
1 Camoens, Os Lusiadas, Cant. I, Sta. 2.
