GAMA, gii'ma, VASCO DA. (c.1469-1524). A Portuguese navigator and the first European to reach India by the maritime route round Africa. He was descended from a noble family, and was born at Sines, a small seaport of Portugal. After some years at Court he was chosen to com mand the expedition dispatched by King Em manuel to India by the all-sea route, the possibil ity of which had been revealed by the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartolomeu Dias in 1487, and confirmed by the explorations of Covil hito, who had reached India by way of the Red Sea, and had crossed the Indian Ocean from Goa to Sofala. Vasco da. Game sailed from Lis bon July 8, 1497, and, doubling the Cape of Good Hope in November, reached in December the Rio do Infante, the farthest point attained by Dias. There he had to suppress a mutiny of his sailors, who shrank from facing the unknown dangers that awaited them. They breasted the strong Agulhas current, and on Christmas Day, 1497, sighted the coast, which Da Gama, in honor of the day, named Natal (dies Natalis). Past Delagoa. Bay, Quillimane, and Mozambique they sailed, until, on April 15, they anchored off Melinde, where they took on board an Ind ian pilot, a native of Gujarat. A voyage of twenty-three days across the Indian Ocean brought the vessels to the coast of Malabar, which was sighted on May 17, 1498. The ruler of Cali cut did not receive the Portuguese very favorably, and Da Gama was forced to fight his way out of the harbor when he started homeward. He
rounded the Cape once more in March, 1499, and on September 8 reached Lisbon. A fleet was immediately dispatched for India under Pedro Alvarez Cabral, whose ships were driven out of their course westward, the discovery of Brazil being the result. In 1502 Da Gama sailed again for India, planting Portuguese colonies on the way at Mozambique and Sofala. On reach ing Calicut he bombarded the place, destroyed the fleet of the Rajah and forced him to conclude peace. In December, 1503, lie was back in Por tugal with a fleet bearing rich cargoes, and was received with great honor and given the titles of Count Vidigueira and Admiral of the Indian Ocean. For twenty years Da Gama saw no active service. Then in 1524, he was dispatched with a fleet to India as the sixth Viceroy of Portuguese Asia, lnit soon after his arrival he (lied at Cochin on Christmas D:ty. 1524. The fame of Da Gama is due, perhaps, less to the merit of his exploits than to the place assigned him by Canioes in his epic. "Os 1.11 siadas." Consult: Correa, The Three Voyages of Itasca da Genie and His Viceroyalty, Thikluyt Society Publications (London, 1869) ; Alvaro Bel ho, Roterio da viagem qua em desccobrimento da India pelo cabo da B6a Esperanga fez Dom Vasco da Gama em 1479, trans. by Ravenstein, Hak luyt Society Publications (London, 1898).