United States or China ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Vasco concealed his real intentions towards the prisoner, but though he adopted a menacing attitude, he really intended him no harm. "You shall pay the penalty of your crimes, tyrant," said he; "you have often boasted before your people that if the Christians came here you would seize them by the hair and drown them in the neighbouring river.
The King assured Vasco da Gama that the broker Davane would act honestly, and that as he was now fairly acquainted with the Portuguese language, he would be of the greatest benefit. He warned his friends, however, to be on their guard against the people of Calecut, who were noted for their want of faith, advising them not to trust themselves on shore without safe hostages.
Leaving his hiding-place, he returned to the Spaniards, where a friendly agreement was made, hand-clasps and mutual vows exchanged, the alliance being confirmed by reciprocal presents. Vasco received four hundred pesos of wrought gold from Chiapes. We have remarked that a peso was equal to rather more than thirty ducats.
They had to pass through lonely forests and over steep and rocky mountains, where ferocious lions and tigers abounded. Taocha placed his favourite son in command of the slaves, whom he loaded with salt fish and bread made of yucca and maize; he commanded his son never to leave the Spaniards and not to come back without permission from Vasco.
It would have been fortunate for the honour of Portugal had all her Viceroys of India possessed the same sense of duty as that which animated the renowned Vasco da Gama.
In 1487 Bartholomew Diaz, after almost a year of sailing, reached the Cape of Good Hope, the southern point of the vast African continent; and in 1497 Vasco da Gama rounded the cape and sailed on to India . He had found a way of bringing Indian spices, silks, and jewels to Europe, bringing them in quantities and without paying tribute to the Turks, without crossing the deadly deserts of Arabia.
Vasco gave Pochorroso the usual acceptable articles, and the cacique gave Vasco fifteen pounds of melted gold and some slaves. When they were about to depart, it transpired that it would be necessary to cross the territory of a chief called Tumanama, the same formerly described by the son of Comogre as the most powerful and formidable of those chiefs.
Only the very princes among men, Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, Cabot, Cabral, Gilbert, and Raleigh, could have done what they did with ships that were mere playthings. Science had to do her work of long and patient research before man could hopefully face the mighty forces and malignant influences of the tropics.
It was a great grief to him that Englishmen had not the monopoly of geographical discoveries, and were, in fact, rather behind other nations in that field. Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of America, was a Genoese; Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese, discovered India; another Portuguese, Fernando de Andrada, China; and a third, Magellan, the Terra del Fuego.
From Aden to Cochin blood flowed beneath his blows, but peace followed; and though he was termed "the Portuguese Mars," his justice became traditional, and his sagacity was shown in the permanence of the settlements he made, even under the incompetent viceroys who followed him. It was twenty years since Vasco da Gama had commanded a ship.
Word Of The Day