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Unfortunately, before the unloading of his ship could be begun, she struck a rock and was lost; and the last state of the men, therefore, was as bad as the first. Among the men who had come with Encisco was a certain Vasco Nuñez, commonly called Balboa. He had been with Bastidas and La Cosa on their voyage to the Isthmus nine years before.
Vasco encouraged their hopes and sent them away satisfied. In exchange for their presents he gave them some iron hatchets, which they prize more than heaps of gold. For as they have no money that source of all evils they do not need gold. The owner of one single hatchet feels himself richer than Crassus.
The fearful "outstretcher" had no longer much interest for them, being a thing that was overcome, and which was to descend from an impossibility to a landmark, from which, by degrees, they would almost silently steal down the coast, counting their miles by thousands, until Vasco de Gama should boldly carry them round to India.
To save him from her subjects, she declares herself his spouse; but as the marriage rite is about to be celebrated, Vasco hears the voice of Inez in the distance, deserts Selika, and flies to her.
They were three days taking on board the goods and provisions with which the King of Cananor supplied them. Vasco da Gama here dismissed Davane, and signed a document calling on all the captains coming from Portugal to treat him as a sincere friend, whom they were always to honour.
Vasco da Gama replied that he took the same account of death as any of them, but that they had heard his resolution, and he intended to keep to it. At this juncture a furious blast struck the ships, the sea again getting up in such a way that they were frequently hidden from the sight of each other, and could only be perceived as they rose to the top of a sea before again falling into the trough.
There being no inhabitants on the islands, the crews landed, and Mass was performed by the two priests, the only survivors of six who had embarked. The crews also confessed and received the Sacrament, and a Mass was offered in praise of Vasco da Gama's patron Saint George.
When Columbus and Vasco da Gama made their memorable voyages at the end of the fifteenth century, Western civilization was pent up closely within the restricted bounds of west-central Europe, and was waging a defensive and none-too-hopeful struggle with the forces of Turanian barbarism.
The full account of the extraordinary voyage made by them is given in the "Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama," translated and published in the Hakluyt edition; being a translation of certain portions of Correa's LENDAS DA INDIA. Da Gama sailed on July 8, A.D. 1497, and arrived close to Calicut on August 26, 1498.
At Calicut Vasco da Gama landed in May, 1498, and there he erected a marble pillar as a monument of his discovery of a new route to the Indies. He has pointed out that prior to 1500 the prices of spices were not generally raised throughout western Europe, and that apparently before that date the Turks had not seriously increased the difficulties of Oriental trade.
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