The Great Explorers by James Matthew

Author:James, Matthew [Matthew James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History/Expeditions and Discoveries
ISBN: 9781612309620
Publisher: New Word City
Published: 2016-06-18T04:00:00+00:00

It was just before noon on Saturday, July 8, 1497, that the grand procession made its way through the streets of Lisbon to the harbor. The entire city seemed to have turned out for the event. Down to the quays they went. Bishops and priests, identified by the color of their garments. Pious friars, with their scalps tonsured to show devotion. There were nobles and captains and seamen of all rank. And in the midst of it all, looking down on the crowd from his mount was Captain Major Vasco da Gama. He was about to depart on the greatest maritime adventure in Portuguese history, an epic journey that would launch the tiny nation into power and prominence.

Da Gama would be leading a fleet of four ships around the southern tip of Africa and on to India. Another Portuguese, Bartolomeu Dias, had proved the basic concept, but he hadn’t made the full trip. King Manuel I had commissioned da Gama for that demanding job.

By sheer length, it was a voyage that seemed nearly impossible.

Amidst the cheers of the crowd, there were more somber sounds. “The wails of women sadden’d all the coast,” wrote Portugal’s Luís de Camões. It was a trip to the unknown, and chronicler Jerónimo Osório asked, “Would it not have been far more tolerable to be carried off by any kind of death onshore, rather than to be buried in the sea waves so far from home?”

Earlier that day, Manuel had granted da Gama a private audience and given him a consecrated silk banner emblazoned with the Cross of the Order of Christ. A papal bull, or order, accorded eternal salvation to all those fearless souls taking part in the adventure. At the waterfront, where the Tagus mixed with the brine of the Atlantic, a local priest said Mass. Then, the men walked up the gang planks. There was a salute of cannons, and the fleet departed, bound for India.

It had been nearly ten years since Dias returned from his journey, which confirmed the existence of a sea route to the Indies by sailing around Africa. But during that time, there had been no further expeditions. Portugal had not been simply sitting on its hands. It had been planning, gathering information - and trying to hammer out a working arrangement with Spain, its larger and growing rival on the Iberian Peninsula.

Dias had shown that the Atlantic and Indian oceans were connected, but his voyage had provided little insight on what sailors might find as they traveled up the east coast of Africa and then made the crossing to the Indian subcontinent. Much of that knowledge would come via another explorer, a crafty jack-of-all-trades named Pêro da Covilhã.

Covilhã had been given his marching orders by then King João II in 1487, the same year Dias set sail. He was an ideal choice, gifted with languages and with a seemingly innate understanding of the nuances of local customs. He had already served as a spy for Portugal in Morocco and was master of disguise.

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