[447] Vasco da Gama thus took 24 days to cross from Melinde to India. Cabral, João da Nova, Estevão da Gama and Affonso de Albuquerque effected this passage in from 15 to 18 days. They crossed in August, when the S.-W. monsoon blows freshly.
[448] The Discoveries of the World (Hakluyt Society), p. 93.
[449] These “Flats” are a submerged coral reef lying between 12° 30´ and 13° 40´ N. The native name is Maniyal Par.
[450] According to the author of Add. MS. 20901 (British Museum), Vasco da Gama “cast anchor in front of the most noble and rich city of Calecut on May 22”. The date of this MS. is about 1516.
[451] On page [80], note 2, we have identified the island upon which this padrão was placed with Pigeon Island, 14° 1´, on the ground of its answering better to the description given by the author of the Roteiro; but we see reasons for accepting the general opinion that one of the islands off Mulpy (perhaps Coco Nut Island) must be meant, although none of these islets is more than a mile from the coast, instead of two leagues. Barros (Dec. 1, l. iv, c. ii.) locates the Ilhéos de Santa Maria between Bacanor and Baticala.
[452] Cabral, on his homeward voyage in 1501, reached Lisbon from Cape Verde in twenty days, but Juan Sebastian del Cano, in the Victoria, took fifty-seven days to reach San Lucar from the Cape Verde Islands.
[453] In converting legoas into nautical miles we have assumed 100 legoas to be the equivalent of 338 miles. See League in Index and Glossary.
[454] Or thirty miles, if we exclude the five days wasted in a vain effort to stem the Agulhas current (see p. [15]).
[455] No account is taken of the four days lost in an attempt to sail north (see p. [28]).
[456] This includes a delay of fifteen (?five) days when burning the S. Raphael.