Don Emmanuel, then king, having no such apprehensions, resolved to abide the consequences of a measure the most arduous ever undertaken by any nation, and which, though it had cost a great deal of time and expence, had yet succeeded beyond their utmost expectations. It was not till after long deliberation that he fixed upon Vasques de Gama, a man of the first distinction, remarkable for courage and great presence of mind. Before his departure, the king put into his hands the journal of Peter Covillan, with his chart, and letters of credit to all the princes in India of whom he had obtained any knowledge.
The behaviour of Vasques de Gama, at parting, was far from being characteristic of the soldier or great man: his processions and tapers favoured much more of the ostentatious devotion of a bigotted little-minded priest, and was much more calculated to depress the spirits of his soldiers, than to encourage them to the service they were then about to do for their country. It served only to revive in their minds the hardships that Dias had met off the Terrible Cape, and persuade them there was in their expedition much more danger than glory. I would not be understood as meaning to condemn all acts of devotion before military expeditions, but would have them always short, ordinary, and uniform. Every thing further inspires in weak minds a sense of danger, and makes them despond upon any serious appearance of difficulty.
July 4th, 1497, Vasques, with his small fleet, sailed from Lisbon; and, as the art of navigation was considerably improved, he stood out to sea till he made the Canary Islands, and then those of Cape de Verde, where he anchored, took in water and other refreshments. After which he was four months struggling with contrary winds and blowing weather, and at last obliged, through perfect fatigue, to run into a large bay called St Helena[22], in lat. 32° 32´ south. The inhabitants of this bay were black, of low stature, and their language not understood, though it afterwards was found to be the same with that of the Cape. They were cloathed with skins of antelopes, which abounded in the country, since known to be that of the Hottentots; their arms were the horns and bones of beasts and fishes, for they had no knowledge of iron.
The Portuguese were unacquainted with the trade-winds in those southern latitudes; and Vasques had departed for India, in a most unfavourable season of the year. The 16th of November they sailed for the Cape with a south-west wind; but that very day, the weather changing, a violent storm came on, which continued increasing; so, although on the 18th they discovered their long-desired Cape, they did not dare or attempt to pass it. Then it was seen how much stronger the impressions were that Dias had left imprinted in their minds, than those of duty, obedience, and resignation, which they had so pompously vowed at the chapel, or hermitage. All the crew mutinied, and refused to pass farther; and it was not the common sailors only; the pilots and masters were at their head. Vasques, satisfied in his mind that there was nothing extraordinary in the danger, persevered to pass the Cape in spite of all difficulties; and the officers, animated with the same ardour, seized the most mutinous of their masters and pilots, and confined them close below in heavy irons.
Vasques himself, taking hold of the rudder, continued to steer the ship with his own hand, and stood out to sea, to the astonishment of the bravest seaman on board. The storm lasted two days, without having in the least shaken the resolution of the admiral, who, on the 20th of November, saw his constancy rewarded by doubling that Cape, which he did, as it were, in triumph, sounding his trumpets, beating his drums, and permitting to his people all sorts of pastimes which might banish from their minds former apprehensions, and induce them to agree with him, that the point had very aptly been called the Cape of Good Hope.
On the 25th they anchored in a creek called Angra de Saint Blaze. Soon after their arrival there appeared a number of the inhabitants on the mountains, and on the shore. The general, fearing some surprise, landed his men armed. But, first, he ordered small brass bells, and other trinkets, to be thrown out of the boats on shore, which the blacks greedily took up, and ventured so near as to take one of them out of the general’s own hand. Upon his landing, he was welcomed with the sound of flutes and singing. Vasques, on his part, ordered his trumpets to sound, and his men to dance round them.
ALL along from St Blaze, for more than sixty leagues, they found the coast remarkably pleasant, full of high and fair trees. On Christmas day they made land, and entered a river which they called the river of the kings; and all the distance between this and St Blaze they named Terra de Natal. The weather being mild, they took to their boats to row along the shore, on which were observed both men and women of a large stature, but who seemed to be of quiet and civil behaviour. The general ordered Martin Alonzo, who spoke several languages of the Negroes, to land; and he was so well received by the chief, or king, that the admiral sent him several trifles, with which he was wonderfully pleased, and offered, in return, any thing he wanted of the produce of his country.
On the 15th of January, in the year 1498, having taken in plenty of water, which the Negroes, of their own accord, helped them to put on board, they left this civil nation, steering past a length of coast terminated by a Cape called the Cape of Currents. There the coast of Natal ends, and that of Sofala begins, to the northward of the Cape. At this place, Gama from the south joined Covillan’s track from the north, and these two Portuguese had completely made the circuit of Africa.
