FOOTNOTES:
[1] He was thus eighteen years of age when Queen Isabella, in 1478, granted a safe-conduct to him and Fernão de Lemos, enabling them to pass through Castile on their way to Tangier (Navarrete, iii, p. 477). According to P. Antonio Carvalho da Costa’s unsupported statement, Vasco da Gama was born in 1469.
[2] According to Castanheda, the appointment was at first offered to Paulo da Gama, Vasco’s elder brother. He declined on account of ill-health, but offered to accompany his brother as captain of one of the vessels.
[3] Vasco da Gama, after his return from India, married Catarina de Ataide. He proceeded a second time to India in 1502. When returning from Cananor he shaped a direct course across the Indian Ocean to Mozambique. After a long period of rest, King João III again sent him to India in 1524, but he died at Cochin on December 25th of the same year, at the age of sixty-five. His remains were taken to Portugal in 1538, and deposited at Vidigueira. Since 1880 they are supposed to have found their last resting-place in the church of Belem.
For an interesting estimate of the character of the great navigator, see Lord Stanley of Alderley’s The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama (Hakluyt Society), 1869. See also the Appendices of this volume for further information on the first voyage.
[4] Ruy Gonçalves da Camara in 1473, Fernão Telles in 1474.
[5] Toscanelli’s letter to Columbus was written long after that addressed to Fernão Martinz, for the expression ha dias (perhaps a rendering of pridem or haud diu) does not mean “a few days ago”, but “long ago.” Columbus himself uses it in that sense when he writes from Jamaica that the “Emperor of Catayo asked long ago (ha dias) for men of learning to instruct him in the faith of Christ.” The request for missionaries had been made to the Pope in 1339 (Navarrete, Colleccion, 2nd ed., I, p. 457).
[6] Barros, Dec. I, l. 3, c. ii.
[7] It is quite possible that the draughtsman of the Cantino Chart placed St. Helena Bay incorrectly, and not as determined by Vasco da Gama. Canerio places this bay in lat. 32° 30´ S., which is only 10´ out of its true position.