Covilham Went From Naples To Alexandria, And Thence To Cairo.
At This City He Formed An Acquaintance With Some Merchants Of Fez And
Barbary, And In Their Company Went To Aden.
Here he embarked and visited
Goa, Calicut, and other commercial cities of India, where he saw pepper and
ginger, and heard of cloves and cinnamon.
From India he returned to the
east coast of Africa, down which he went as low as Sofala, "the last
residence of the Arabs, and the limit of their knowledge in that age, as it
had been in the age of the Periplus." He visited the gold mines in the
vicinity of this place: and here he also learnt all the Arabs knew
respecting the southern part of Africa, viz. that the sea was navigable to
the south-west (and this indeed their countrymen believed, when the author
of the Periplus visited them); but they knew not where the sea terminated.
At Sofala also Covilham gained some information respecting the island of
the Moon, or Madagascar. He returned to Cairo, by Zeila, Aden, and Tor. At
Cairo, he sent an account of the intelligence to the king, and in the
letter which contained it, he added, "that the ships which sailed down the
coast of Guinea, might be sure of reaching the termination of the
continent, by persisting in a course to the south, and that when they
should arrive in the eastern ocean, their best direction must be to enquire
for Sofala and the island of the Moon."
"It is this letter," observes Dr. Vincent, "above all other information,
which, with equal justice and equal honour, assigns the theoretical
discovery to Covilham, as the practical to Diaz and Gama; for Diaz returned
without hearing any thing of India, though he had passed the Cape, and Gama
did not sail till after the intelligence of Covilham had ratified the
discovery of Diaz." One part of the instructions given to Covilham required
him to visit Abyssinia: in order to accomplish this object, he returned to
Aden, and there took the first opportunity of entering Abyssinia. The
sovereign of his country received and treated him with kindness, giving him
a wife and land. He entered Abyssinia in 1488, and in 1521, that is, 33
years afterwards, the almoner to the embassy of John de Lima found him.
Covilham, notwithstanding he was as much beloved by the inhabitants as by
their sovereign, was anxious to return to Portugal, and John de Lima, at
his request, solicited the king to grant him permission to that effect, but
he did not succeed. "I dwell," observes Dr. Vincent, "with a melancholy
pleasure on the history of this man, - whom Alvarez, the almoner, describes
still as a brave soldier and a devout Christian; - when I reflect upon what
must have been his sentiments on hearing the success of his countrymen, in
consequence of the discovery to which he so essentially contributed.
_They_ were sovereigns of the ocean from the Cape of Good Hope to the
straits of Malacca: _he_ was still a prisoner in a country of
barbarians."
It might have been supposed, that after it had been ascertained by Diaz
that the southern promontory of Africa could be doubled, and by Covilham,
that this was the only difficulty to a passage by sea to India, the court
of Portugal would have lost no time in prosecuting their discoveries, and
completing the grand object they had had in view for nearly a century:
this, however, was not the case. Ten years, and another reign, and great
debates in the council of Portugal were requisite before it was resolved
that the attempt to prosecute the discovery of Diaz to its completion was
expedient, or could be of any advantage to the nation at large. At last,
when Emanuel, who was their sovereign, had determined on prosecuting the
discovery of India, his choice of a person to conduct the enterprise fell
on Gama. As he had armorial bearings, we may justly suppose that he was of
a good family; and in all respects he appears to have been well qualified
for the grand enterprise to which he was called, and to have resolved, from
a sense of religion and loyalty, to have devoted himself to death, if he
should not succeed. Diaz was appointed to a command under him, but he had
not the satisfaction of witnessing the results of his own discovery; for he
returned when the fleet had reached St. Jago, was employed in a secondary
command under Cabral, in the expedition in which Brazil was discovered, and
in his passage from that country to the Cape, four ships, one of which he
commanded, perished with all on board.
As soon as the fleet which Gama was to take with him was ready for sea, the
king, attended by all his court, and a great body of the people, formed a
solemn procession to the shore, where they were to embark, and Gama assumed
the command, under the auspices of the most imposing religious ceremonies.
Nearly all who witnessed his embarkation regarded him and those who
accompanied him "rather as devoted to destruction, than as sent to the
acquisition of renown."
The fleet which was destined to accomplish one of the objects (the
discovery of America is the other) - which, as Dr. Robertson remarks,
"finally established those commercial ideas and arrangements which
constitute the chief distinction between the manners and policy of ancient
and modern times," - consisted only of three small ships, and a victualler,
manned with no more than 160 souls: the principal officers were Vasco de
Gama, and Paul his brother: Diaz and Diego Diaz, his brother, who acted as
purser: and Pedro Alanquer, who had been pilot to Diaz. Diaz was to
accompany them only to a certain latitude.
They sailed from Lisbon on the 18th of July, 1497: in the bay of St.
Helena, which they reached on the 4th of November, they found natives, who
were not understood by any of the negro interpreters they had on board.
From the description of the peculiarity in their mode of utterance, which
the journal of the voyage calls sighing, and from the circumstance that the
same people were found in the bay of St. Blas, 60 leagues beyond the Cape,
there can be no doubt that they were Hottentots.
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