In November, 1507, at the request of the Viceroy, Varthema accompanied him and Tristão da Cunha to the assault on Ponani, a port to the south of Calicut. He tells us how, after the customary prayers and spiritual monitions, “a little before break of day, we opened war to the death on these dogs, who were eight thousand; and we, about six hundred.” Native troops have never had a chance against European arms and discipline. The disproportion of the opposing troops was about the same as at Plassey, two centuries and a half later; and if all De Almeyda’s troops were Europeans, as Clive’s were not, the latter were all led by European officers and trained in European methods. And if, opposed to Clive and the famous Thirty-ninth primus in Indis there were a few French auxiliaries, opposed to De Almeyda and Da Cunha were 64 Moors vowed to victory or death, “for each one of them was master of a ship.” “But God gave us His help, so that none of our folk were slain here; yet we killed 140; and of these, with my own eyes, I saw Don Lorenzo slay six; and he got two wounds; and many others were wounded also. For a little while the battle was most fiercely fought. But our galleys neared the shore; and then these dogs began to give way: and for that the water (of the river at Ponani) began to fall, we followed them no farther. But these dogs began to swell their numbers; so we set fire to their ships, burning thirteen thereof, most of them newly builded and big. And then the Viceroy withdrew all his troops to the headland; and here he made some knights; and of these, of his grace he made me one; and that most valiant leader, Tristão da Cunha, was my sponsor.” And then they all embarked for Cannanore.
CHAPTER XI.
THE NEW WAY ROUND THE CAPE.
The home-bound fleet was now loading. Varthema had given the Portuguese a year and a half of faithful service; he tells us that he was anxious to return to Europe; he had had fully five years of perilous wanderings through Moslem and Pagan lands to where no European foot hitherto had pressed the soil; and he was urged “by the affection and kindly feeling I bore my country, and my desire to carry thither and place upon record news concerning a great part of the world.” The grace demanded was freely given to one who had worked and fought so well; and on December 6th, 1506, a fortnight after the last great fight, he went on board, and the San Vicenzo and other great ships set sail.
A long voyage across the ocean brought the fleet to the coast of what is British East Africa to-day. Malinda, Mombasa and the island of Pemba were touched at during the voyage along the eastern coast; then, Kiloa, the extreme limit of Ibn Batûta’s voyage, a German port not so long ago; then, the Comoro islands, together with several other trading-places which the Portuguese had seized and fortified. All this part of the “Dark Continent” had been long peacefully penetrated by Arab traders and had profited by commercial intercourse with them; and the natives were incited to expel the intruder. The appearance of a rival had infuriated the Moslem trader, and the natives caught something of his spirit in resisting the new comers. They were now beginning to experience the tender mercies of the Christian. The Portuguese spread their faith among the palm groves of the South after the fashion of the Teutonic knights over the heaths of Prussia. They used the sword mercilessly; they burned towns and wrought every horror that can be inflicted by the passions of men released from discipline and from the restraints of a long voyage—men stimulating each other to brutality by mutual example, and infected with that mad fury which is apt to possess any excited gang. But Varthema tells us of the pleasure he felt at the successes of the Portuguese and the spread of Catholic truth. He found Pagans were baptized daily in Africa, as in India. “From what I have seen of India and Ethiopia,” he writes, “methinks the King of Portugal, should it please God, and his victories go on, will become the richest King on earth ... he is the means whereby the Christian faith is spread daily; wherefore it may be credited that God hath given him victory and will continue to prosper him.”
We must not accuse our whilom Mameluke of any grave insincerity in writing thus. No doubt he had an eye to the good will of Julius II., and the Catholic public; but every son of the church was expected to express himself in this way, and every son of the Renaissance was ready to do so. As has been said, the Italian of the age was not burthened by any undue sense of sin or overvexed about religion. These high matters were the care of a special profession—the clergy—and of an organized institution—the Church. The direst lapses into iniquity were “bad shots,” as sins were called by the Greeks—mere unfortunate glancings aside from the bull’s eye—and absolution was easily obtained. The main thing was to aim at making life a full, rich, and splendid success. None the less, the Rock of St. Peter was at once the emblem of European Civilization and the foundation on which in theory it rested: The Church and European civilization must be spread, to put an end to Mohammedanism, that enduring peril, and the Paganism from which it drew its recruits and no small measure of its wealth and power. This is what lies at the bottom of Varthema’s mind. The King of Portugal is destined to become the wealthiest and most powerful of rulers; and the possession of wealth and the unrestricted exercise of power of every kind, mental and moral and physical was the ideal of the age and the reward of its virtu.
At Moçambique, an island off what is still Portuguese East Africa, the fleet remained fifteen days to take in provisions, and Varthema crossed to the mainland. He tells us of the blackness of the natives; of their woolly hair, thick lips, and “teeth white as snow”; of how the men wore bark and the women leaves as a loin-cloth; and of the clicking of their speech, like the noises, made by tongue and palate, with which the muleteers of Sicily urge on their steeds. (So probably at some time Varthema had visited Sicily). Finding these negroes “few and vile,” he and five or six others armed themselves, engaged a guide, and went on an excursion. They saw great herds of elephants roaming about; but by collecting dry wood, and setting fire to it, they scared the great beasts away. Yet, in the end, they were chased by three she-elephants who had their calves with them, and had to make for a hill in all haste. They escaped with difficulty, and doubtless had not done so but for the mothers of the herd being hampered by the calves they found themselves called upon to protect. The party crossed some ten miles over the ridge and came to cave-dwellers, of whom they purchased fifteen cows for a little rubbish of European manufacture. When on the way back to the ship, they heard a great uproar. It came from the caves, and greatly alarmed them, until they understood from the signs made by two negroes, who were driving the cows, that they need have no fear; and their guide assured them that these people were only quarrelling as to which of them should be the possessor of that rare treasure, a little bell.
Sailing from Moçambique between the mainland and San Lorenzo (as Madagascar was then called), our traveller remarks that in his belief “the King of Portugal will soon be lord thereof; for two places there have already been seized and put to fire and flame.” After the Cape was rounded the fleet encountered terrific storms. The ships were dispersed by their violence, nor did they sight each other again during the remainder of the voyage.
Off St. Helena, the voyagers on Varthema’s ship were scared by the appearance of whales. “We saw two fishes, each as great as a great house, which, when on the surface, raise a kind of vizor, I should say of the width of three strides, and let it down when they go under again. We were so alarmed at the power of these fishes in swimming that we let off all our artillery.” He next describes the boobies of Ascension: birds “so simple and foolish that they let themselves be caught by the hand ... and, before they Were caught, they looked on us as at a miracle.... On this island are only water and fish and these birds.” A few days later, they saw the North Star on the horizon. They touched at the Azores, and at last reached the beautiful estuary of the Tagus, and anchored off the “noble city of Lisbon.”