“ Having seen enough of India to assure him of its great resources, he returned to Portugal in September 1499. The king received him with every mark of distinction, granted him the use of the prefix Dom, thus elevating him to the rank of an untitled noble, and conferred on him pensions and other property. In prosecution of da Gama’s discoveries another fleet of thirteen ships was immediately sent out to India under Pedro Alvares Cabral, who, in sailing too far westward, by accident discovered Brazil, and on reaching his destination established a factory at Calicut. ”

“ Explorers sent out at his instigation discovered the Azores and unknown regions on the African coast, whence continually came reports of a great monarch, “who lived east of Benin, 350 leagues in the interior, and who held both temporal and spiritual dominion over all the neighbouring kings,” a story which tallied so remarkably with the accounts of “Prester John” which had been brought to the Peninsula by Abyssinian priests, that John II. of Portugal steadfastly resolved that both by sea and by land the attempt should be made to reach the country of this potentate. ”

“ Four months later the flotilla cast anchor in St Helena Bay, South Africa, rounded the Cape in safety, and in the beginning of the next year reached Malindi, on the east coast of Africa. Thence, steering eastward, under the direction of a pilot obtained from Indian merchants met with at this port, da Gama arrived at Calicut, on the Malabar coast, on the 20th May 1498, and set up, according to the custom of his country, a marble pillar as a mark of conquest and a proof of his discovery of India. ”