Amidships stood the batel, or long boat, in addition to which there was available a yawl rowed with four or six oars.
There were three masts and a bowsprit. The main-mast rose to a height of 110 ft. above the keel and flew the Royal Standard at its head, whilst the captain’s scarlet flag floated from the crow’s-nest, nearly 70 ft. above deck. A similar crow’s-nest was attached to the foremast. In the case of an engagement these points of vantage were occupied by fighting men, who hurled thence javelins, grenades, and powder-pots upon the enemy. The sails were square, with the exception of that of the mizzen, which was triangular. When spread they presented 4,000 square feet of canvas to the wind; this was exclusive of the “bonnets” which were occasionally laced to the leeches of the mainsail, and served to some extent the same purpose as a modern studding-sail.[411] The Cross of the Order of Christ was painted on each sail.
The anchors, two in number, were of iron, with a wooden stock and a ring for bending the cable.
The hold was divided into three compartments. Amidships were the water barrels, with coils of cable on the top of them—a very inconvenient arrangement; abaft was the powder-magazine, and most arms and munitions, including iron and stone balls, were kept there; the forward compartment was used for the storage of requisites, including spare sails and a spare anchor.
The lower deck was divided by bulkheads into three compartments, two of which were set apart for provisions, presents, and articles of barter. The “provisions”, according to Castanheda, were calculated to suffice for three years, and the daily rations were on a liberal scale, consisting of 1½ pounds of biscuit, 1 pound of beef or half a pound of pork, 2½ pints of water, 1¼ pints of wine, one-third of a gill of vinegar, and half that quantity of oil. On fast days, half a pound of rice, of codfish, or cheese was substituted for the meat. There were, in addition, flour, lentils, sardines, plums, almonds, onions, garlic, mustard, salt, sugar and honey. These ships’ stores were supplemented by fish, caught whenever an opportunity offered, and by fresh provisions obtained when in port, among which were oranges, which proved most acceptable to the many men suffering from scurvy.
The merchandise was not only insufficient in quantity, but proved altogether unsuited to the Indian market. It seems to have included lambel (striped cotton stuff), sugar, olive-oil, honey, and coral beads. Among the objects intended for presents, there were wash-hand basins, scarlet hoods, silk jackets, pantaloons, hats, Moorish caps; besides such trifles as glass beads, little round bells, tin rings and bracelets, which were well enough suited for barter on the Guinea coast, but were not appreciated by the wealthy merchants of Calecut. Of ready money there seems to have been little to spare. All this is made evident by the letters of D. Manuel and Signor Sernigi.
The scientific outfit of the expedition, it may safely be presumed, was the best to be procured at the time. The learned D. Diogo Ortiz de Vilhegas[412] furnished Da Gama with maps and books, including, almost as a matter of course, a copy of Ptolemy, and copies of the information on the East collected at Lisbon for years past. Among these reports, that sent home by Pero de Covilhão found, no doubt, a place,[413] as also the information furnished by Lucas Marcos,[414] an Abyssinian priest who visited Lisbon about 1490.
The astronomical instruments were provided by Zacut, the astronomer, and it is even stated that Vasco enjoyed the advantage of being trained as a practical observer by that learned Hebrew. These instruments included a large wooden astrolabe, smaller astrolabes of metal, and, in all probability, also quadrants; and they were accompanied by a copy of Zacut’s Almanach perpetuum Celestium motuum cujus radix est 1473, a translation of which, by José Vizinho, had been printed at Leiria in 1496.[415] These tables enabled the navigator to calculate his latitudes by observing the altitude of the sun.
There was, of course, a sufficient supply of compasses, of sounding leads and hour-glasses, and possibly also a catena a poppa, that is, a rope towed at the stern to determine the ship’s leeway, and a toleta de marteloia, a graphical substitute for our modern traverse tables, both of them contrivances long since in use among the Italians. It is also possible that Vasco was already provided with an equinoctial compass for determining the time of high water at the ports he visited, and with a variation compass. This instrument consisted of a combination of a sun-dial with a magnetic needle. It had been invented by Peurbach, c. 1460, was improved by Felipe Guillen, 1528, and by Pedro Nunes, 1537, and used for the first time on an extensive scale by João de Castro, during a voyage to India and the Red Sea, in 1538-41.[416] We are inclined to think that Vasco had such a variation compass, for the Cabo das Agulhas, or “Needle Cape”, thus named because the needle there pointed, or was supposed to point, due north, has already found a place on Cantino’s Chart, and can have been named only as the result of an actual observation, however inaccurate.