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. In consequence of the
ignorance or the obstinacy of the pilot, and of tempestuous weather, the
voyage to the Cape was long and dangerous: this promontory, however, was
doubled on the 20th of November. After this the wind and weather proving
favourable, the voyage was more prosperous and rapid. On the 11th of
January, 1498, they reached that part of the coast where the natives were
no longer Hottentots, but Caffres, who at that period displayed the same
marks of superior civilization by which they are distinguished from the
Hottentots at present.
From the bay of St. Helena till they passed Cape Corrientes, there had been
no trace of navigation, - no symptom that the natives used the sea at all.
But after they passed this cape, they were visited by the natives in boats,
the sails of which seem to have been made of the fibres of the cocoa-palm.
A much more encouraging circumstance, however, occurred:
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