bia, and Africa's shores. Already these rivals had tried to discredit the newcomer as a pirate ad venturer. The Zamorin rather curtly demanded to know what Gama wanted. The explorer scored over the jealous Arabs when he requested a private hearing. The Zamorin and the commander retired to a smaller chamber, no less luxurious, and the monarch threw himself on another couch, covered with cloth embroidered in gold. Thereupon Gama displayed a letter, touched it to his eyes, to his forehead, and, kneeling, handed it to the Zamorin. It may be that this letter was was genuine, though one narrator says it was composed, and King Manoel's signature forged, after Gama anchored at Calicut and learned WITH NO MAPS AND ONLY A CRUDE COMPASS, GAMA TOOK HIS of the splendors of the Zamorin's court. It also may be that Gama did not fabri TOY SHIPS AROUND AFRICA TO INDIA Daring the dangers of unknown seas, smitten by scurvy, risking battle when his small and weakened crew met natives ashore, Gama's 23,800-mile cruise to India and back stands unique in navigation's hiscate a tale about history. Herbert Johnson's drawing of the San Gabriel, after a model designed by Capt. A. A. B. da Silva. ship's having been separated from a vast fleet in a storm, for not all the chronicles mention that. MONARCH SCORNFUL OF GAMA'S GIFTS But it is certain that Gama had some tall explaining to do when, later, it came to giving the inevitable presents. He assembled the best he had: twelve pieces of striped cloth, four scarlet hoods, six hats, four strings of coral, a case of six washbasins, a case of sugar, two casks of oil and two of honey. The Zamorin was totally unimpressed. He asked what the Portuguese had ex pected to find, stones or men? He mentioned that the meanest traders from Mecca did better than that. Finally he intimated that the King of Portugal must be inconsequential, certainly lacking in good manners, to send the mighty Zamorin of Calicut such trifling gifts. So Gama had to assure him that these presents were from him, not from his king. He had been sent to trade and had brought only samples, not gifts. Or, if you believe another narrative, that the king's gifts were on the mythical stormlost fleet. Photograph by Lazarus WHENCE GAMA SAILED ON THAT GREAT VOYAGE WHICH WAS TO MAKE PORTUGAL RULER OF THE SEAS Not even the most visionary could have imagined, in 1497, that the launching of Gama's three crude and clumsy sailing ships was to change the whole map of the world and affect the course of human events for generations. The Tower of Belem, on the north bank of the Tagus, at Lisbon. Here Gama spent his last night before embarking on his history-making voyage. .. Publishers' Photo Service WEALTH CAME TO LISBON WHEN GAMA GAVE PORTUGAL AN EMPIRE IN AFRICA AND INDIA For 1.500 years Lisbon men have been sailors. From here the Spanish Armada sailed. To a singular degree the sea has shaped the destiny of Lisbon. Sea trade sustains her; at times, tidal waves have nearly destroyed her. Lisbon's very name, one tradition says, came from "Ulyssippo" and the mythical Iberian city founded by Ulysses. All over the world one finds the "Portygee" sailor and fisherman. For decades fishing boats of Portugal have crossed the Atlantic to the Newfoundland Banks to catch codfish, from which "bacalao," the national dried fish plate, is made. This old woman is mending nets in the Portuguese coast town of Vianna do Castello. Surely Gama was a great navigator; undoubtedly he was a great explorer; also, in our day, he would be acclaimed a great salesman. His credentials and gifts were questionable, he was misrepresented and harried by the Arabs, the touch of his hand was a defilement, yet his persuasive presentation of his monarch's power and good intentions won him the Zamorin's signature on the ribbed, if not dotted, line. HISTORY'S MOST FAMOUS BUSINESS LETTER For, ultimately, the Zamorin called for his iron pen and wrote with heavy strokes, on a palm leaf, the following note for Gama's delivery to the King of Portugal: "Vasco da Gama, a gentleman of your household, came to my country, whereat I was pleased. My country is rich in cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, and precious stones. That which I ask you in exchange is gold, silver, corals, and scarlet cloth." After Gama's return a Venetian chronicler wrote: "When this news reached Venice the whole city felt it greatly and remained stupefied, and the wisest held it as the worst news that had ever arrived." Well they might; from that time forth shipping filtered slowly out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic. The Sultan of Egypt, who had fattened on import and export levies upon Suezrouted trade with Venice, was panicstricken. He ordered Venetian wood shipped to Cairo, camels carried it across the Isthmus, and he started building a futile wooden fleet to attack the Portuguese when they should visit India again. Probably no other explorer than Vasco da Gama ever reaped so richly and speedily, for himself and his country, the rewards of his discovery. He culminated that amazing flaring up of Portugal from a petty primeval fief of obscure León, in the eleventh century, to the famed mistress of the seas, in the sixteenth. LANDLUBBERS ABOARD THE CARAVELS After his second voyage every farm and vineyard was culled of lads to join the India-bound caravels. In one fleet a ship was manned by sons of the soil who never before felt the need of learning their right hands from their left. At sea they were nonplused by the intricacies of starboard and larboard. A captain had the happy notion, according to one chronicle, of tying a bundle of garlic over one side of the ship and a handful of onions over the other. Then the pilot would shout to the helmsmen, "Onion your helm!" or "Garlic your helm!" Portugal's power dwindled in the face of the greater ultimate worth of the voyages of Columbus, Magellan, and Cabot, but that fact detracts not a whit from the glamorous adventures and noble achievements of Gama's first voyage to India. Were there a list of the seven greatest scenes of the Middle Ages, Gama's setting sail from the mouth of the Tagus July 9, 1497, would rank high among them. Four squat three-masters rode at anchor in the muddy roadstead. Sailors swarmed over their towering "castles," fore and aft, some storing last-minute supplies of beef and pork, biscuits and wine; others making ready to hoist the huge square sails, each painted with a mammoth cross of the Order of Christ. DARED PERILS OF UNKNOWN SEAS An excited throng, big spice and slave men, shipwrights and sailors, grandees and hangers-on, lined the marshy shores. Some cheered, the women wailed, for the unknown seas held the direst mysteries, even for the boldest seamen. Equatorial oceans boiled and steamed like geysers; the sun beat on parched floors like whirlwinds of flame. Did not the maps show terrifying sea serpents in the deep and monsters on the rocks, unicorns that could pierce three caravels at a single stroke, and the dread Bishop of the Seas clutching his phosphorescent miter? Twelve surly convicts lounged, under guard, blinking at the unaccustomed light. They had been released from dungeons to reconnoiter lands where Gama did not wish to risk the lives of able seamen. The crowd parted and, in slow procession, came the expedition's leaders, bearing lighted candles, while priests and friars chanted as they marched behind. Gama, along with the rest, had spent the night in vigil and prayer in the crude mariners' chapel Prince Henry had built. Always, one must keep in mind, it was |