The Man Who Sailed Around the Cape of Good Hope

The Captain of the End sailed for nearly two years through watery abysses never traversed, in the torrid heat of Summer or against the icy winds of Winter, in that tiny malodorous ark infested with parasites, made of wood, iron, rope, canvas and suffering—the ‘discovery caravel,’ driven solely by the force of the wind and one man’s dream. Bartolomeu Dias emerged and passed like the Comet itself—an arrow pointing the way, a luminous trail, a brief memory of incomplete records—known to few and ignored by nearly all. Greater than Vasco da Gama or Pedro Álvares Cabral, he was the least celebrated, perhaps because courage and valor are silent virtues and true Superheroes prefer to hide beneath a modest appearance.