"In This Part Of The Voyage The Greatest Proofs Of Courage And Resolution
Were Evinced By De Gama.
While endeavouring to double this formidable and
almost unknown cape, owing to contrary winds and stormy weather, the
waves rose mountain high.
At one time his ships were heaved up to the
clouds, and seemed the next moment precipitated into the bottomless abyss
of the ocean. The wind was piercingly cold, and so boisterous that the
commands of the pilot could seldom be heard amid the din of the warring
elements; while the dismal and almost constant darkness increased the
danger of their situation. Sometimes the gale drove them irresistibly to
the southwards, while at other times they had to lay to, or to tack to
windward, difficultly preserving the course they had already made. During
any gloomy intervals of cessation from the tempest, the sailors,
exhausted by fatigue, and abandoned to despair, surrounded De Gama,
entreating him not to devote himself and them to inevitable destruction,
as the gale could no longer be weathered, and they must all be buried in
the waves if he persisted in the present course. The firmness of the
general was not to be shaken by the pusillanimity and remonstrances of
the crew, on which a formidable conspiracy was entered into against him,
of which he received timely information from his brother Paulo. With his
assistance, and that of a few who remained stedfast to their duty, the
leading conspirators, and even all the pilots, were put in irons; whilst
De Gama, and his small remnant of faithful followers remained day and
night at the helm, undismayed at the dangers and difficulties that
surrounded them.
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