As there was little or no wind, the fleet stood out to sea to avoid the shore, and about vespers on Sunday, they descried three small islands out to sea, about four leagues distant from each other. Two of these were replenished with trees, but the third was quite bare. Seeing no cause to delay the voyage in examining these islands, De Gama held on for six days, coming always to anchor at night. On the evening of Thursday, the first of March, they came in sight of four islands, two of which were near the land, and the other two farther out to sea; and the fleet steered through the channel next morning, the ship commanded by Coello, as being the smallest, going first. But endeavouring to enter a certain harbour, between the mainland and one of these islands, Coello missed the channel and ran aground, on which the other ships put about and went back. They soon perceived seven or eight boats under sail coming from the island which was a good league distant from Coello, at which sight they were much rejoiced, and Coello and his people received them with much demonstration of friendship and satisfaction, Coello went along with these people to the general, and presented them, saying, that here was a quite different kind of people from any they had seen hitherto. Then the general commanded to let them go a seaboard with their boats [26], as he proposed to go with them to their island to anchor with his ships, that he might see what kind of a country it was, and if he could learn any certain intelligence concerning India. But the boats continued to follow our ships, making signals, and calling to our people to wait for them; wherefore the ships came to anchor, and the boats came to our fleet. The people on board were of good stature and somewhat black, clothed in dresses of cotton, striped with sundry colours; some girdled to their knees, while others carried their apparel on their shoulders like cloaks. Their heads were covered with kerchiefs, somewhat wrought with silk and gold thread, and they were armed with swords and daggers like Moors. In their boats, also, they had certain musical instruments named sagbuts . They came immediately on board with as much confidence as if they were long acquainted, and entered into familiar conversation in the language of Algarve, and would not be known as Moors[27].
[26] This obscure expression seems to mean that De Gama wished them to precede the ships, and point out the way into the harbour.--E.
[27] This expression has probably been misunderstood by the original translator. It appears that these Moors of Mozambique spoke Arabic, here called the language of Algarve, and finding themselves understood and answered by the strangers, mistook the Portuguese for Moors.--E.
The general ordered these people to be well entertained, and they eat and drank willingly of whatever was set before them; after which, by means of Fernan Alvarez, who could speak their language, he learned that the island to which they belonged was called Monsambicke, or Mozambique, on which was a town full of merchants, who traded with the Moors of India, who bring them silver, linen cloth, pepper, ginger, silver rings, many pearls, and rubies; and that, from a country behind, they procure gold. They offered likewise to conduct our people into the harbour, where they would learn the truth of these things more fully. On consulting with the other captains, the general determined upon going into this harbour, to examine more accurately into these reports, and to procure pilots to carry them on their voyage, as they had no one in the fleet who knew the way. Nicholas Coello was therefore ordered to make the first essay, and to take the soundings of the bar, his ship being the smallest. But in entering, he touched on the point of the island where he broke his helm, and was in great danger of being lost; but by good providence he got off with no farther injury. He now found the bar was quite safe, and got into the harbour, where he anchored two cross-bow shots from the town, which is in fifteen degrees towards the south[28]. The harbour is very good, the town is plentifully supplied with such provisions as the country produces, the houses being constructed of straw, and the inhabitants Moors, who trade to Sofala in large vessels that have neither decks nor nails, their planks being sewed together with cayro or twine, made from the fibres of the cocoa nut rind, and their sails of mats made of the leaves of a species of palm. Some of these vessels use compasses of Genoa, and regulate their voyages by means of quadrants and sea charts. With these Moors the Moors of India trade, as likewise do those from the Red Sea, because of the gold which is to be had here. On seeing our people, the Moors of Mozambique thought the Portuguese had been Turks, whom they knew of from the Moors who dwell on the Red Sea; and those who were first at our ships carried intelligence to the xeque, or sheik, which is the title of the governor of this island for the king of Quiloa, in whose territories it is situated.
[28] Mozambique is in lat. 15° 35' S. and in 41° of E. Long--E.
"Though we shall afterwards have occasion to investigate this eastern coast of Africa more fully, in editing particular voyages to its shores, some notices seem here to be proper[29]. Owing to his keeping at a distance from, the shore for security, the present voyage gives little knowledge of the eastern coast of Africa, and it is even difficult to assign the many stations at which De Gama touched between the Cape of Good Hope and Mozambique. We have already noticed the river of Good Signs, as being probably the northern mouth of the Delta of the Zambeze, now called Quilimane , from a fort of that name on its banks. The mouth of this branch runs into the sea in lat. 18° 25' S. In his passage from the Terra de Natal , or Christmas Land, so named from having been discovered on Christmas day, and named, in this account of De Gamas voyage, the Land of Good People , De Gama missed Cape Corientes, forming the S.W. point of the channel of Mozambique, or Inner Passage , as it is now called, and overshot Sofala, the southern extremity of Covilhams discoveries, at which he was probably directed to touch, as Covilhams chart might have been of some use to direct his farther progress to Aden, and thence to Calicut or Cananor, on the Malabar coast.
[29] The observations here inserted, and marked with inverted commas, are made by the Editor of the present collection. They are much too long for insertion in the form of a note, and appeared of too much importance to be omitted; being chiefly from Clarke, I. 447.--E.
"The eastern coast of Africa is hitherto very little known to geography, its trade being entirely confined to the Portuguese, who have settlements at Sofala, the river Zambeze, Mozambique, Quiloa, and Melinda, and conceal all the circumstances respecting their foreign possessions with infinite jealousy. It is said to have once been in contemplation by the British government, to employ Sir Home Popham to make a survey of this coast, but this design was never executed. Commodore Blanket remained on this station for a considerable time, and much information may be expected from his journal, some drawings of the coast having been already made for charts, which are preparing, under the orders of the Admiralty. About the year 1782, a great mass of geographical information was collected on the continent of Europe and lodged in the British Museum, from which information may probably be derived respecting this coast, when that collection shall have been arranged and submitted to the public. According to D'Apres, all the eastern coast of Africa, for a great way south of the equinoctial, is lined by a range of islands, whence shoals extend to the distance of a league. These islets form an outer shore, with a winding channel within, and are in some places a league from the coast of the continent, though very apt to be mistaken for the real coast. Within this range the boats or almadias of the country ply backwards and forwards in great safety, in the intervening channel.
"Ptolemy places the Prasum promontorium , or Green Cape, the extreme southern boundary of ancient knowledge of the east coast of Africa, in lat. 15" 30' S. and the Portuguese universally assume Mozambique as Prasum, by which classical name it is distinguished in the Lusiad of Camoens, in reference to the voyage of De Gama, and the near coincidence of situation gives great probability to this supposition. [Greek: prason] signifies a leek, and is also used to denote a sea-weed of a similar green colour, and the name may either have been derived from the verdure of the point, or from the sea-weeds found in its neighbourhood. At all events, Prasum cannot be farther south than Cape Corientes, or farther north than Quiloa or the Zanguebar islands. The harbour of Mozambique has seldom less than eight or ten fathom water, which is so clear, that every bank, rock, or shallow can be easily seen.
"The Moors, so often mentioned, are supposed by Bruce to have been merchants expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, who first fixed their residence on the western coast of Africa, and extending themselves eastwards, formed settlements in Arabia and Egypt, till the oppressions of Selim and Soliman, the Turkish emperors, interrupted their commerce, and obliged them to disperse along the coast of Abyssinia and eastern Africa. Besides the impossibility, chronologically, for the assigned causes having produced the supposed effect, there is no necessity for having recourse to this improbable hypothesis. From being best acquainted with their Moorish conquerors, the Spaniards and Portuguese have always been accustomed to name all the Arabians Moors, wherever they found them, and even gave at first the name of black Moors to the Negroes, whence our old English term Black-a-moors . It is well known that the Arabs, especially after their conversion to Mahometanism, were great colonizers or conquerors; even the now half-christian kingdom of Abyssinia was an early colony and conquest of the pagan Arabs, and its inhabitants are consequently white Moors in the most extended Portuguese sense. The Arab, or Moorish kingdoms along the African coast of the Indian ocean, are branches from the same original stem, and the early Mahometan missionaries were both zealous and successful in propagating Islaemism among the most distant pagan colonies of their countrymen. As all zealous Mussulmen are enjoined the pilgrimage of Mecca, and commerce mixes largely with religion in the holy journey, by which the faithful from every distant region often meet at Mecca, and induce each other to extend their commercial adventures to new regions, it may possibly have been, that some Moors originally from Spain, may even have reached Mozambique before the time of De Gama; but it is ridiculous to suppose that all the Moors on the African coast had been Spaniards. The overthrow of the great Moorish kingdom of Granada only took place five or six years before the present voyage.