The Jew, seeing the punishment inflicted on the other prisoners, became dreadfully alarmed, suspecting that he also would be put to death. The Captain-Major, however, ordered him to be taken below, and confined in a cabin.
The monsoon having just commenced, the pilots advised that the ships should proceed on their voyage. They accordingly made sail and steered westward, their great object accomplished, across the Indian Ocean. The wind was fair, and the sea, as before, calm; but sickness broke out among the men, and many more died. The first land made was near the city of Magadaxo. The Captain-Major having had ample experience of the Moorish rulers of these coasts, bombarded it as he sailed by. He then proceeded, without stopping, until he came off another city called Pate, from which eight large zambuks came out to attack him. A few broadsides drove them away, and he sailed on until he reached Melinda.
Owing to calms, the voyage lasted nearly four months during which, from the want of fresh provisions, scurvy, scarcely before known, attacked the crews. Ulcers broke out on their arms and legs, and their gums became swollen and rotten, so that thirty men died, and others could hardly move about. Some of the pilots also mutinied, and wanted to put back to Calecut; but Vasco da Gama had them placed in irons, and undertook the guidance of the ships himself.
On the shore near Melinda they found the King waiting to receive them, and standing in the water. The Captains leaping out of their boats, he embraced them and conducted them to his palace, where he treated them right courteously. He wrote a letter on gold leaf to the King of Portugal, calling him his brother and promising to befriend his people.
Vasco da Gama, pleased with the conduct of the native pilots, begged that two of them might be permitted to accompany him to Portugal, at which the King expressed his pleasure. To reward the pilots, the Captain-Major presented them with two hundred cruzados in gold, to be given to their wives.
Several more men here died, and were buried on shore, so that the crews of the two ships were reduced to a very small number. Before they took their departure, the King sent a magnificent present to the King and Queen of Portugal. Among other articles was a broad gold neck-chain, with precious stones and pearls, worth ten thousand cruzados; a chest richly inlaid with silver and ivory, full of white stuffs, silks and gold thread, and a piece of ambergris set with silver, half an ell long, and as thick as a man’s wrist.
Vasco da Gama, in order to sustain the honour of the King of Portugal, presented numerous valuable articles in return. After taking an affectionate farewell of the King of Melinda, the native pilots being received on board and Mass having been said, the Captain-Major ordered the anchors to be weighed, and on the feast of San Sebastian, 1499, the ships sailed from Melinda. They first stood out from the land, and then made a course along it to the southward. They sighted Mozambique, but did not put in there, and continued their course until off Sofala, where they encountered several severe squalls. They escaped danger by furling all the sails, warned in time by the native pilots. Sometimes they were exposed to heavy seas with little or no wind, which greatly tried the ships.
At length they came off the Cape of Good Hope, in sight of which they passed without accident. Pressing on all sail, they stood into the Atlantic, when, seeing the Cape astern and that they were steering towards Portugal, the seamen in their great joy embraced each other, and then, kneeling down, offered up their praises and thanksgivings to Heaven for having thus far preserved them.
In order to make the shortest possible course for Portugal they kept away from the land, but as they approached the equator they suffered much delay from calms. Paulo da Gama was also taken very ill, and kept to his bed, when Vasco went on board his ship that he might be with him leaving Coelho in charge of his own.
Seeing that they were approaching Portugal, the pilots who had mutinied became very uneasy, until Vasco da Gama told them that they were forgiven, but that he should take them bound into the presence of the King. Even the stoutest hearted, however, might have doubted whether they should ever reach the land, for the ships were so leaky that it was necessary to keep the pumps constantly at work. Frequent calms were also met with, and they passed through a vast mass of seaweed, to which the name of Sargarço was given, from its resembling the leaf of the grape so-called. That part of the ocean has ever since retained the name of the Sargarço Sea. It is that vast collection of seaweed thrown off by the Gulf Stream, and prevented from drifting farther south by the counter-current which sets westward towards Central America.