When they finally left the Atlantic for the Indian Ocean, they were already six months from home. They were still far to the north of the Cape of Good Hope, and they had to fight a torturous battle against adverse currents and winds before they could finally round the bottom of the continent. Next they turned their prows south and west into the open ocean, hoping thereby to avoid the calms of the Gulf of Guinea - so much they already knew from the many earlier Portuguese expeditions that had sought African gold and slaves for decades.ĭropping below the equator, they passed from a northern summer into a southern winter whose gales, now deep in the southern latitudes, slung them back east to Africa. Passing the Canaries, they headed south down the African coast, skirting the western bulge of the continent toward the Cape Verde Islands.
It has 1,102 stanzas, an appropriately monumental and meandering tribute.Īs tends to be the way with epics, the drama was supplied by a combination of heroism, foolishness and cruelty.Īfter saying their last prayers in the chapel of the Torre do Bélem, the crew bade farewell to wives and family before setting out on their "doubtful way" ( caminho duvidoso), directing their three small caravels and one supply vessel down the Tagus on July 8, 1497. It provided the inspiration for and subject matter of Portugal's national poem, the magnificent, sprawling "Lusiads" by Luís Vaz de Camões. An epic taleĭa Gama’s voyage was, in every sense, an epic - literally so. When Columbus sailed to America, he had to chivvy his men through 33 days without sight of land. In comparison, da Gama's voyage lasted more than two years, covering some 24,000 miles of ocean - a distance four times greater than Columbus had sailed. In navigational terms, the outward crossing was uncomplicated.īarely out of sight of Spanish territory in the Canary Islands, his small flotilla picked up the northeasterly trade winds that carried them across the Atlantic in little over a month. The greatest difficulty of Columbus's voyage was that it was unprecedented. Between the two of them - however dimly sensed at the time - they united the continents. This is true as much in terms of their objectives as the achievements of their missions.
One man might best be thought of as the complement to the other. In sailing to India five years after Columbus sailed to America, da Gama found what Columbus had sought in vain - a new route to an old world. It is a somewhat unfair assessment, for in a number of senses da Gama brought about what Columbus left undone. Outside his native Portugal, where past glories live long in the memory, Vasco da Gama has generally been remembered as a less eminent contemporary of Christopher Columbus.
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