<P> Bartolomeu Dias was a squire of the royal court, superintendent of the royal warehouses, and sailing - master of the man - of - war, São Cristóvão (Saint Christopher). Very little is known of his early life . King John II of Portugal appointed him, on October 10, 1486, to head an expedition to sail around the southern tip of Africa in the hope of finding a trade route to India . Dias was also charged with searching for the lands ruled by Prester John, a fabled Christian priest and ruler of a territory somewhere beyond Europe . He left 10 months later in August 1487 . In the previous decades Portuguese mariners, most famously Prince Henry the Navigator (whose contribution was more as a patron and sponsor of voyages of discovery than as a sailor), had explored the areas of the Atlantic Ocean off Southern Europe and Western Africa as far as the Cape Verde Islands and modern day Sierra Leone, and had gained sufficient knowledge of oceanic shipping and wind patterns to enable subsequent voyages of greater distance . In the early 1480s Diogo Cão in two voyages (he died towards the end of the second) had explored the mouth of the Congo River and sailed south of the Equator to present - day Angola and Namibia . </P> <P> Dias' ship São Cristóvão was piloted by Pêro de Alenquer . A second caravel, the São Pantaleão, was commanded by João Infante and piloted by Álvaro Martins . Dias' brother Pêro Dias was the captain of the square - rigged support ship with João de Santiago as pilot . </P> <P> The expedition sailed south along the west coast of Africa . More provisions were picked up on the way at the Portuguese fortress of São Jorge de Mina on the Gold Coast . After having sailed south of modern day Angola, Dias reached the Golfo da Conceicão (Walvis Bay, in modern Namibia) by December . Continuing south, he discovered first Angra dos Ilheus, being hit, then, by a violent storm . Thirteen days later, from the open ocean, he searched the coast again to the east, discovering and using the westerlies winds - the ocean gyre, but finding just ocean . Having rounded the Cape of Good Hope at a considerable distance to the west and southwest, he turned towards the east, and taking advantage of the winds of Antarctica that blow strongly in the South Atlantic, he sailed northeast . After 30 days without seeing land, he entered what he named Aguada de São Brás (Bay of Saint Blaise)--later renamed Mossel Bay--on 4 February 1488 . Dias's expedition reached its furthest point on 12 March 1488 when they anchored at Kwaaihoek, near the mouth of the Boesmans River, where a padrão--the Padrão de São Gregório--was erected before turning back . Dias wanted to continue sailing to India, but he was forced to turn back when his crew refused to go further and the rest of the officers unanimously favoured returning to Portugal . It was only on the return voyage that he actually discovered the Cape of Good Hope, in May 1488 . Dias returned to Lisbon in December of that year, after an absence of sixteen months and seventeen days . </P> <P> The discovery of the passage around southern Africa was significant because, for the first time, Europeans could trade directly with India and the Far East, bypassing the overland Euro - Asian route with its expensive European, Middle Eastern and Central Asian middlemen. The official report of the expedition has been lost . </P>

Who sailed around the cape of good hope in 1498
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