Through every discouragement he persevered still.

Many a Swiss peak has gone through three phases.

It has been pronounced, first, "inaccessible," then, "a very dangerous ascent," and finally, "a pleasant excursion." So it was with each fresh headland which seemed to bar the way down the African coast.
And the travellers who came last, in each case, found it next to impossible to imagine what were the difficulties and dangers that had seemed so formidable to their predecessors.
BARRIER OF ROCKS.
For a long time Cape Bojador, which is situate seventy leagues to the south of Cape Nam, was the extreme limit of discovery.

This cape was formidable in itself, being terminated by a ridge of rocks, with fierce currents running round them; but was much more formidable from the fancies which the mariners had formed of the sea and land beyond it.

"It is clear," they were wont to say, "that beyond this cape there are no people whatever; the land is as bare as Libya--no water, no trees, no grass in it; the sea so shallow, that at a league from the land it is only a fathom deep; the currents so fierce, that the ship which passes that cape will never return;" and thus their theories were brought in to justify their fears.
This outstretcher (for such is the meaning of the word Bojador) was therefore as a bar drawn across that advance in maritime discovery, which had for so long a time been the first object of Prince Henry's life.
POPULAR OBJECTIONS.
For twelve years the prince had been sending forth ships and men, with little approbation from the public--the discovery of Madeira and Porto Santo serving to whet his appetite for further enterprise, but not winning the common voice in favour of his projects.