——O gens
Infelix! cui to exitio fortuna reservat?
Septima post Trojæ excidium jam vertitur æstas;
Cum freta, cum terras omnes, tot inhospita saxa
Sideraque emensæ ferimur: dum per mare magnum
Italiam sequimur fugientem, et volvimur undis. Æn. v. 625.
[377] Hop.
[378] It had been extremely impolitic in Gama to mention the mutiny of his followers to the King of Melinda. The boast of their loyalty, besides, has a good effect in the poem, as it elevates the heroes, and gives uniformity to the character of bravery, which the dignity of the epopea required to be ascribed to them. History relates the matter differently. In standing for the Cape of Good Hope, Gama gave the highest proofs of his resolution. The fleet seemed now tossed to the clouds, ut modo nubes contingere, and now sunk to the lowest whirlpools of the abyss. The winds were insufferably cold, and, to the rage of the tempest was added the horror of an almost continual darkness. The crew expected every moment to be swallowed up in the deep. At every interval of the storm, they came round Gama, asserting the impossibility to proceed further, and imploring him to return. This he resolutely refused. A conspiracy against his life was formed, but was discovered by his brother. He guarded against it with the greatest courage and prudence; put all the pilots in chains, and he himself, with some others, took the management of the helms. At last, after having many days withstood the tempest, and a perfidious conspiracy, invicto animo, with an unconquered mind, a favourable change of weather revived the spirits of the fleet, and allowed them to double the Cape of Good Hope.—Extr. from Osorius's Historia.
[379] Gama and his followers were, from the darkness of the Portuguese complexion, thought to be Moors. When Gama arrived in the East, a considerable commerce was carried on between the Indies and the Red Sea by the Moorish traders, by whom the gold mines of Sofala, and the riches of East Africa were enjoyed. The traffic was brought by land to Cairo, from whence Europe was supplied by the Venetian and Antwerpian merchants.
[380] "O nome lhe ficou dos Bons-Signais."
[381] Raphael. See Tobit, ch. v. and xii.—Ed.
[382] It was the custom of the Portuguese navigators to erect crosses on the shores of new-discovered countries. Gama carried materials for pillars of stone with him, and erected six crosses during his expedition. They bore the name and arms of the king of Portugal, and were intended as proofs of the title which accrues from first discovery.
[383] This poetical description of the scurvy is by no means exaggerated. It is what sometimes really happens in the course of a long voyage.
[384] King of Ithaca.
[385] Æneas.