Christe!
That Night, Having Obtained Leave From The King, Our Men Made Them A
Great Feast, With Much Diversion, Also Of Squibs, Firing Of Guns, And
Loud Cries.
The fleet remained at anchor for two days without any message
from the shore, on which account the general was much distressed, fearing
the king had taken offence at his refusal to go on shore, and might break
the peace and amity between them, and not send him any pilot.
But on
Sunday the 21st of April, a person who was in high credit with the king,
came off to visit the general, who was much disappointed when this person
brought no pilot, and again began to entertain suspicions of the kings
intentions. When the king learnt this, and that the general remained
merely for the purpose of having a pilot, he sent him one who was a
Gentile, called _Gosarate_[43] in their language, and whose name was
_Canaca_, sending an apology at the same time for not having sent this
person sooner. Thus the king and the general remained friends, and the
peace continued which had been agreed between them.
"De Barros and Faria give this pilot the name of _Malemo Cana_, and say
that he belonged to one of the Indian ships of Cambaya, then at Melinda.
De Barros adds, that he shewed De Gama a very small chart of the coast of
India, laid down with meridians and parallels, but without rhumbs of the
winds. This pilot shewed no surprise on seeing the large wooden and metal
astrolabes belonging to the Portuguese, as the pilots of the Red Sea had
long used brass triangular instruments and quadrants for astronomical
observations, and that he and others who sailed from Cambaya, and the
ports of India, navigated by the north and south stars, and the
constellations of the eastern and western hemispheres; and, though they
did not use these instruments in navigation, they employed one made of
three pieces of board, similar to the _balhestillia_, or cross-staff of
the Portuguese.
"In a collection of papers published in 1790, called _Documentos
Arabicos_, from the royal archives of Lisbon, chiefly consisting of
letters between the kings of Portugal and the tributary princes of the
east in the sixteenth century, the _zeque, sheik_, or king of Melinda,
with whom De Gama afterwards made a treaty of alliance, and whose
ambassador he carried into Portugal, was named Wagerage[44]."
Having thus procured a pilot, and provided all things necessary for the
voyage, De Gama departed from Melinda for Calicut, on Friday the 26th of
April 1498[45], and immediately made sail directly across the gulf which
separates Africa from India, which is 750 leagues[46]. This golf runs a
long way up into the land northwards; but our course for Calicut lay to
the east[47]. In following this voyage, our men saw the north star next
Sunday, which they had not seen of a long while; and they saw the stars
about the south pole at the same time.
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