ipernity: Vasco da Gama

Dinesh ^club

There was something of a festive atmosphere to the Europeans’ reception in Malindi. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malindi . . . . The Sultan dispatched a “Christian” who was willing to steer the expedition across the Ocean to their desired destination. He was more likely a Gujarati Muslim, possessed for a chart of the western Indian coast and familiar with quadrants of taking astronomical observations. Five hundred years later, Arab dhow captains would still be cursing this Muslim pilot who first let the Franks, the Europeans they called the “ferengi,’ into the secrets of the ocean’s navigation. ~ Page 58

. . . . On Friday, May 18, after only twenty three days away from land and twenty three hundred miles of open water, they spied high mountains. The following day shattering rain thundered on the decks, blotting out visibility; fierce flashes of lightening split the sky. They had hit the early prelude to the monsoon. As the storm cleared, the pilot was able to recognize the coast: “he told us that they were above Calicut, and that this was the country we desired to go.” . . . Page 59

Gama had ended the isolation of Europe. The Atlantic was was no longer a barrier; it had become a highway to link up the hemispheres. This was a signal moment in the long process of global convergence, yet there is no sense of any larger achievement in the resolutely factual anonymous journal, and there are only muted hints in slightly later Portuguese accounts: Vasco da Gama paid off the pilot handsomely, called the crew to prayers, and gave “thanks to God, who had safely conducted them to the long-wished-for place of his destination” ~ page 59

15 months ago. Edited 7 weeks ago.

J.Garcia ^club

Many Thanks, Dinesh!

15 months ago. Edited 15 months ago.

LotharW ^club

Danke für die Bilder und die Informationen. Hier seine Grabstätte in Belem bei Lissabon
www.ipernity.com/doc/1033655/46085490/in/album/1038310

15 months ago.

elvigiadelosamanecer… ^club

Gracias por tu comentario, feliz fin de semana.

15 months ago.

Dinesh ^club

Although the Portuguese were convinced that operations directed against them in the Red sea and off the coast of India in the early sixteenth century were the result of a grand alliance orchestrated against them by Venice, in truth the Egyptians needed little encouragement to try to impose control over their own shipping lanes. The appearance of rising number of Portuguese ships had been unwelcome, not least because the new rivals were highly aggressive. On one occasion Vasco da Gama himself captured a ship filled with hundreds of Muslims returning to India after going on pilgrimage to Mecca. Ignoring the desperately generous offers of those on board to pay a rasom, he ordered the ship to be set on fire in an act so grotesque that one observed avowed, “I will remember what happened every single day of my life.,” Women held up their jewellery to beg for mercy from the flames or from the water, while others held up their infants to try to protect them. Da Gama watched impassively, “curelly and without any pity as every last passenger and crew members drowned before his eyes.” ~ Page 221

www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/vasco_da_gama_01.shtml#:~:text=Here%20he%20captured%20the%20Meri,days%20until%20all%20had%20died.

7 weeks ago. Edited 7 weeks ago.

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