BOOK I.

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THE LUSIAD.

[Illustration: Image of Camoëns]

THE LUSIAD;

OR,

THE DISCOVERY OF INDIA.

_AN EPIC POEM._

TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF LUIS DE CAMOËNS.

WITH A LIFE OF THE POET.

BY WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.

_FIFTH EDITION, REVISED,_

BY E. RICHMOND HODGES, M.C.P.,

HON. LIBRARIAN TO THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL ARCHÆOLOGY,

_Editor of "Cory's Ancient Fragments," "The Principia Hebraica," etc., etc._

LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET,

COVENT GARDEN.

1877.

"As the mirror of a heart so full of love, courage, generosity, and

patriotism as that of Camoëns, The Lusaid can never fail to please us,

whatever place we may assign to it in the records of poetical

genius."--HALLAM.

[ORIGINAL DEDICATION, 1776.]

TO THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUGH.

MY LORD,

The first idea of offering my LUSIAD to some distinguished personage,

inspired the earnest wish, that it might be accepted by the illustrious

representative of that family under which my father, for many years,

discharged the duties of a clergyman.

Both the late Duke of BUCCLEUGH, and the Earl of DALKEITH, distinguished

him by particular marks of their favour; and I must have forgotten him,

if I could have wished to offer the first Dedication of my literary

labours to any other than the Duke of BUCCLEUGH.

I am, with the greatest respect,

My Lord,

Your Grace's most devoted

And most obedient humble servant,

WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

In undertaking, at the publishers' request, the function of editor of

Mickle's Lusiad, I have compared the translation with the original, and,

in some places, where another translation seemed preferable to, or more

literal than, Mickle's, I have, in addition, given that rendering in a

foot-note. Moreover, I have supplied the arguments to the several

cantos, given a few more explanatory notes, and added a table of

contents.

"The late ingenious translator of the Lusiad," says Lord Strangford,[1]

"has portrayed the character, and narrated the misfortunes of our poet,

in a manner more honourable to his feelings as a man than to his

accuracy in point of biographical detail. It is with diffidence that the

present writer essays to correct his errors; but, as the real

circumstances of the life of Camoëns are mostly to be found in his own

minor compositions, with which Mr. Mickle was unacquainted, he trusts

that certain information will atone for his presumption."

As Lord Strangford professes to have better and more recent sources of

information regarding the illustrious, but unfortunate, bard of

Portugal, I make no apology for presenting to the reader an abstract of

his lordship's memoir. Much further information will be found, however,

in an able article contained in No. 53 of the _Quarterly Review_ for

July, 1822, from the pen, I believe, of the poet Southey. "The family of

Camoëns was illustrious," says Lord Strangford, "and originally Spanish.

They were long settled at Cadmon, a castle in Galicia, from which they

probably derived their patronymic appellation. However, there are some

who maintain that their name alluded to a certain wonderful bird,[2]

whose mischievous sagacity discovered and punished the smallest

deviation from conjugal fidelity. A lady of the house of Cadmon, whose

conduct had been rather indiscreet, demanded to be tried by this

extraordinary judge. Her innocence was proved, and, in gratitude to the

being who had restored him to matrimonial felicity, the contented

husband adopted his name." It would appear that in a dispute between the

families of Cadmon and De Castera, a cavalier of the latter family was

slain. This happened in the fourteenth century. A long train of

persecution followed, to escape which, Ruy de Camoëns, having embraced

the cause of Ferdinand, removed with his family into Portugal, about

A.D. 1370. His son, Vasco de Camoëns, was highly distinguished by royal

favour, and had the honour of being the ancestor of our poet, who

descended from him in the fourth generation. Luia de Camoëns, the author

of the Lusiad, was born at Lisbon about A.D. 1524. His misfortunes began

with his birth--he never saw a father's smile--for Simon Vasco de

Camoëns perished by shipwreck in the very year which gave being to his

illustrious son. The future poet was sent to the university of

Coimbra--then at the height of its fame,--"and maintained there by the

provident care of his surviving parent."

"Love," says Lord Strangford, "is very nearly allied to devotion, and it

was in the exercise of the latter, that Camoëns was introduced to the

knowledge of the former. In the Church of Christ's Wounds at Lisbon, on

11th April, 1542, Camoëns first beheld Doña Caterina de Atayde, the

object of his purest and earliest attachment ... and it was not long

before Camoëns enjoyed an opportunity of declaring his affection, with

all the romantic ardour of eighteen and of a poet." The peculiar

situation of the lady, as one of the maids of honour to the queen,

imposed a restraint upon her admirer which soon became intolerable; and

he, for having violated the sanctity of the royal precincts, was in

consequence banished from the court. Whatever may have been the nature

of his offence, "it furnished a pretext to the young lady's relations

for terminating an intercourse which worldly considerations rendered

highly imprudent."

But Love consoled his votary: his mistress, on the morning of his

departure, confessed the secret of her long-concealed affection, and the

sighs of grief were soon lost in those of mutual delight. The hour of

parting was, perhaps, the sweetest of our poet's existence.

Camoëns removed to Santarem, but speedily returned to Lisbon, was a

second time detected, and again driven into exile.[3]

The voice of Love inspired our poet "with the glorious resolution of

conquering the obstacles which fortune had placed between him and

felicity." He obtained permission, therefore, to accompany King John

III. in an expedition then fitting out against the Moors in Africa. In

one of the engagements with the enemy our hero had the misfortune to

lose "his right eye, by some splinters from the deck of the vessel in

which he was stationed. Many of his most pathetic compositions were

written during this campaign, and the toils of a martial life were

sweetened by the recollection of her for whose sake they were endured.

His heroic conduct at length procured his recall to court," but to find,

alas, that his mistress was no more.

Disappointed in his hope of obtaining any recognition of his valiant

deeds, he now resolved, under the burning sun of India, to seek that

independence which his own country denied. "The last words I uttered,"

says Camoëns, "on board the vessel before leaving, were those of Scipio:

'Ungrateful country! thou shalt not even possess my bones.'" "Some,"

says Lord Strangford, "attribute his departure to a very different

cause, and assert that he quitted his native shores on account of an

intrigue in which he was detected with the beautiful wife of a

Portuguese gentleman. Perhaps," says Lord Strangford, "this story may

not be wholly unfounded." On his arrival in India he contributed by his

bravery to the success of an expedition carried on by the King of

Cochin, and his allies, the Portuguese, against the Pimento Islands; and

in the following year (1555) he accompanied Manuel de Vasconcelos in an

expedition to the Red Sea. Here he explored the wild regions of East

Africa, and stored his mind with ideas of scenery, which afterwards

formed some of the most finished pictures of the Lusiad.

On his return to Goa, Camoëns devoted his whole attention to the

completion of his poem; but an unfortunate satire which, under the title

of _Disparates na India_, or Follies in India, he wrote against the

vices and corruptions of the Portuguese authorities in Goa, so roused

the indignation of the viceroy that the poet was banished to China.

Of his adventures in China, and the temporary prosperity he enjoyed

there, while he held the somewhat uncongenial office of _Provedor dos

defuntos_, i.e., Trustee for deceased persons, Mickle has given an ample

account in the introduction to the Lusiad. During those years Camoëns

completed his poem, about half of which was written before he left

Europe. According to a tradition, not improbable in itself, he composed

great part of it in a natural grotto which commands a splendid view of

the city and harbour of Macao. An engraving of it may be seen in

Onseley's Oriental Collections, and another will be found in Sir G.

Staunton's Account of the Embassy to China.

A little temple, in the Chinese style, has been erected upon the rock,

and the ground around it has been ornamented by Mr. Fitzhugh, one of our

countrymen, from respect to the memory of the poet. The years that he

passed in Macao were probably the happiest of his life. Of his departure

for Europe, and his unfortunate shipwreck at the mouth of the river

Meekhaun,[4] in Cochin China, Mickle has also given a sufficient

account.

Lord Strangford has related, on the authority of Sousa, that while our

poet was languishing in poverty at Lisbon, "a cavalier, named Ruy de

Camera, called on him one day, asking him to finish for him a poetical

version of the seven penitential psalms. Raising his head from his

wretched pallet, and pointing to his faithful Javanese attendant, he

exclaimed, 'Alas, when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and blest

with the love of ladies; but now I am a forlorn, deserted wretch.

See--there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating fourpence to

purchase a little coals--I have them not to give him.' The cavalier, as

Sousa relates, closed both his heart and his purse, and quitted the

room. Such were the grandees of Portugal." Camoëns sank under the

pressure of penury and disease, and died in an alms-house, early in

1579, and was buried in the church of Sta. Anna of the Franciscan

Friars. Over his grave Gonzalo Coutinho placed the following

inscription:--

"HERE LIES LUIS DE CAMOËNS.

HE EXCELLED ALL THE POETS OF HIS TIME.

HE LIVED POOR AND MISERABLE, AND HE DIED SO.

MDLXXIX."

The translator of the Lusiad was born, in 1734, at Langholm, in

Dumfriesshire, where his father, a good French scholar, was the

Presbyterian minister. At the age of sixteen William Julius Mickle was

removed, to his great dislike, from school, and sent into the

counting-house of a relation of his mother's, a brewer, where, against

his inclination, he remained five years. He subsequently, for family

reasons, became the head of the firm, and carried on the business. It is

not to be wondered at, however, that with his dislike to business in

general and to this one in particular, he did not succeed; and it is

quite reasonable to suppose that the cause of his failure, and

subsequent pecuniary embarrassments, arose from his having devoted those

hours to his poetical studies which should have been dedicated to

business. Mickle obtained afterwards the appointment of corrector of the

Clarendon Press in Oxford, and died at Wheatly, in Oxfordshire, in 1789.

Southey speaks of Mickle (_Quarterly Review_, liii. p. 29) as a man of

genius who had ventured upon the chance of living by his literary

labours, and says that he "did not over-rate the powers which he was

conscious of possessing, knew that he could rely upon himself for their

due exertion, and had sufficient worldly prudence to look out for a

subject which was likely to obtain notice and patronage." His other

poems, Pollio, Sir Martyn, etc., with the exception of his Cumnor Hall,

are not held in high estimation.

Describing the several poetic versions of the Lusiad, Mr. Musgrave

says,[5] of Fanshaw's version, that "its language is antiquated, and in

many instances it travesties the original, and seldom long sustains the

tone of epic gravity suited to the poem. It is, however," says he, "more

faithful than the translation of Mickle, but it would be ungenerous," he

adds, "to dwell on the paraphrastic licences which abound in Mickle's

performance, and on its many interpolations and omissions. Mr. Mickle

thought, no doubt," says Musgrave, "that by this process he should

produce a poem which in its perusal might afford a higher gratification.

Nor am I prepared to say that by all readers this would be deemed a

miscalculation. Let it not be supposed, however, that I wish to detract

from the intrinsic merit of his translation. It is but an act of justice

to admit, that it contains many passages of exquisite beauty, and that

it is a performance which discovers much genius, a cultivated taste, and

a brilliant imagination. Many parts of the original are rendered with

great facility, elegance, and fidelity. In poetical elegance I presume

not to enter into competition with him."

For his own performance Musgrave claims the merit of greater fidelity to

the original; but in respect of harmony, in true poetic grace, and

sublimity of diction, his translation will bear no comparison with

Mickle's version; for even Southey, in the article before quoted, though

very hard upon his interpolations, admits that, "Mickle was a man of

genius ... a man whom we admire and respect; whose memory is without a

spot, and whose name will live among the English poets." (_Quarterly

Review_, liii. p. 29.)

It only remains for me to say, that in order to place the reader in a

position to judge of the merits of this sublime effort of genius, I have

distinguished Mickle's longer interpolations by printing them in Bk. i.

p. 24, in _Italics_, and in the first 300 lines of Bk. ix. by calling

the attention of the reader to the interpolation by means of a

foot-note. The notes are, in general, left as written by the translator,

except in some cases where it seemed advisable to curtail them. Original

notes are indicated by the abbreviation "_Ed._"

THE EDITOR.

LONDON, 1877.

THE LIFE OF CAMOËNS,

BY WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.

When the glory of the arms of Portugal had reached its meridian

splendour, Nature, as if in pity of the literary rudeness of that

nation, produced a great poet to record the numberless actions of high

spirit performed by his countrymen. Except Osorius, the historians of

Portugal are little better than dry journalists. But it is not their

inelegance which rendered the poet necessary. It is the peculiar nature

of poetry to give a colouring to heroic actions, and to express

indignation against breaches of honour, in a spirit which at once seizes

the heart of the man of feeling, and carries with it instantaneous

conviction. The brilliant actions of the Portuguese form the great hinge

which opened the door to the most important alterations in the civil

history of mankind. And to place these actions in the light and

enthusiasm of poetry--that enthusiasm which particularly assimilates the

youthful breast to its own fires--was Luis de Camoëns the poet of

Portugal, born.

Different cities have claimed the honour of his birth. But according to

N. Antonio, and Manuel Correa, his intimate friend, this event happened

at Lisbon in 1517.[6] His family was of considerable note, and

originally Spanish. In 1370 Vasco Perez de Caamans, disgusted at the

court of Castile, fled to that of Lisbon, where King Ferdinand

immediately admitted him into his council, and gave him the lordships of

Sardoal, Punnete, Marano, Amendo, and other considerable lands; a

certain proof of the eminence of his rank and abilities. In the war for

the succession, which broke out on the death of Ferdinand, Caamans

sided with the King of Castile, and was killed in the battle of

Aljabarota. But though John I., the victor, seized a great part of his

estate, his widow, the daughter of Gonsalo Tereyro, grand master of the

Order of Christ, and general of the Portuguese army, was not reduced

beneath her rank. She had three sons, who took the name of Camoëns. The

family of the eldest intermarried with the first nobility of Portugal,

and even, according to Castera, with the blood royal. But the family of

the second brother, whose fortune was slender, had the superior honour

to produce the author of the Lusiad.

Early in life the misfortunes of the poet began. In his infancy, Simon

Vaz de Camoëns, his father, commander of a vessel, was shipwrecked at

Goa, where, with his life, the greatest part of his fortune was lost.

His mother, however, Anne de Macedo of Santarem, provided for the

education of her son Luis, at the University of Coimbra. What he

acquired there his works discover; an intimacy with the classics, equal

to that of a Scaliger, but directed by the taste of a Milton or a Pope.

When he left the university he appeared at court. He was a polished

scholar and very handsome,[7] possessing a most engaging mien and

address, with the finest complexion, which, added to the natural ardour

and gay vivacity of his deposition, rendered him an accomplished

gentleman. Courts are the scenes of intrigue, and intrigue was

fashionable at Lisbon. But the particulars of the amours of Camoëns rest

unknown. This only appears: he had aspired above his rank, for he was

banished from the court; and in several of his sonnets he ascribes this

misfortune to love.

He now retired to his mother's friends at Santarem. Here he renewed his

studies, and began his poem on the discovery of India. John III. at this

time prepared an armament against Africa. Camoëns, tired of his

inactive, obscure life, went to Ceuta in this expedition, and greatly

distinguished his valour in several _rencontres_. In a naval engagement

with the Moors in the Straits of Gibraltar, Camoëns, in the conflict of

boarding, where he was among the foremost, lost his right eye. Yet

neither the hurry of actual service, nor the dissipation of the camp,

could stifle his genius. He continued his _Lusiadas_; and several of his

most beautiful sonnets were written in Africa, while, as he expresses

it,

"One hand the pen, and ant the sword employ'd."

The fame of his valour had now reached the Court, and he obtained

permission to return to Lisbon. But while he solicited an establishment

which he had merited in the ranks of battle, the malignity of evil

tongues (as he calls it in one of his letters) was injuriously poured

upon him. Though the bloom of his early youth was effaced by several

years residence under the scorching sky of Africa, and though altered by

the loss of an eye, his presence gave uneasiness to the gentlemen of

some families of the first rank where he had formerly visited. Jealousy

is the characteristic of the Spanish and Portuguese; its resentment

knows no bounds, and Camoëns now found it prudent to banish himself from

his native country. Accordingly, in 1553 he hailed for India, with a

resolution never to return. As the ship left the Tagus he exclaimed, in

the words of the sepulchral monument of Scipio Africanus, "_Ingrata

patria, non possidebis ossa mea!_" (Ungrateful country, thou shalt not

possess my bones!) But he knew not what evils in the East would awaken

the remembrance of his native fields.

When Camoëns arrived in India, an expedition was ready to sail to

revenge the King of Cochin on the King of Pimenta. Without any rest on

shore after his long voyage, he joined this armament, and, in the

conquest of the Alagada Islands, displayed his usual bravery. But his

modesty, perhaps, is his greatest praise. In a sonnet he mentions this

expedition: "We went to punish the King of Pimenta," says he, "_e

succedeones bem_" (and we succeeded well). When it is considered that

the poet bore no inconsiderable share in the victory, no ode can

conclude more elegantly, more happily than this.

In the year following, he attended Manuel de Vasconcello in an

expedition to the Red Sea. Here, says Faria, as Camoëns had no use for

his sword, he employed his pen. Nor was his activity confined to the

fleet or camp. He visited Mount Felix, and the adjacent inhospitable

regions of Africa, which he so strongly pictures in the Lusiad, and in

one of his little pieces, where he laments the absence of his mistress.

When he returned to Goa, he enjoyed a tranquility which enabled him to

bestow his attention on his epic poem. But this serenity was

interrupted, perhaps by his own imprudence. He wrote some satires which

gave offence, and by order of the viceroy, Francisco Barreto, he was

banished to China.

Men of poor abilities are more conscious of their embarrassment and

errors than is commonly believed. When men of this kind are in power,

they affect great solemnity; and every expression of the most distant

tendency to lessen their dignity is held as the greatest of crimes.

Conscious, also, how severely the man of genius can hurt their interest,

they bear an instinctive antipathy against him, are uneasy even in his

company, and, on the slightest pretence, are happy to drive him from

them. Camoëns was thus situated at Goa; and never was there a fairer

field for satire than the rulers of India at that time afforded. Yet,

whatever esteem the prudence of Camoëns may lose in our idea, the

nobleness of his disposition will doubly gain. And, so conscious was he

of his real integrity and innocence, that in one of his sonnets he

wishes no other revenge on Barreto than that the cruelty of his exile

should ever be remembered.[8]

The accomplishments and manners of Camoëns soon found him friends,

though under the disgrace of banishment. He was appointed Commissary of

the estates of deceased persons, in the island of Macao, a Portuguese

settlement on the coast of China. Here he continued his Lusiad; and

here, also, after five years residence, he acquired a fortune, though

small, yet equal to his wishes. Don Constantine de Braganza was now

Viceroy of India; and Camoëns, desirous to return to Goa, resigned his

charge. In a ship, freighted by himself, he set sail, but was

shipwrecked in the gulf near the mouth of the river Meekhaun, in Cochin

China. All he had acquired was lost in the waves: his poems, which he

held in one hand, while he swam with the other, were all he found

himself possessed of when he stood friendless on the unknown shore. But

the natives gave him a most humane reception; this he has immortalized

in the prophetic song in the tenth Lusiad;[9] and in the seventh he

tells us that here he lost the wealth which satisfied his wishes.

_Agora da esperança ja adquirida, etc._

"Now blest with all the wealth fond hope could crave,

Soon I beheld that wealth beneath the wave

For ever lost;----

My life like Judah's Heaven-doom'd king of yore

By miracle prolong'd."

On the banks of the Meekhaun, he wrote his beautiful paraphrase of the

137th Psalm, where the Jews, in the finest strain of poetry, are

represented as hanging their harps on the willows by the rivers of

Babylon, and weeping their exile from their native country. Here Camoëns

continued some time, till an opportunity offered to carry him to Goa.

When he arrived at that city, Don Constantine de Braganza, the viceroy,

whose characteristic was politeness, admitted him into intimate

friendship, and Camoëns was happy till Count Redondo assumed the

government. Those who had formerly procured the banishment of the

satirist were silent while Constantine was in power. But now they

exerted all their arts against him. Redondo, when he entered on office,

pretended to be the friend of Camoëns; yet, with the most unfeeling

indifference, he suffered the innocent man to be thrown into the common

prison. After all the delay of bringing witnesses, Camoëns, in a public

trial, fully refuted every accusation against his conduct while

commissary at Macao, and his enemies were loaded with ignominy and

reproach. But Camoëns had some creditors; and these detained him in

prison a considerable time, till the gentlemen of Goa began to be

ashamed that a man of his singular merit should experience such

treatment among them. He was set at liberty; and again he assumed the

profession of arms, and received the allowance of a

gentleman-volunteer, a character at that time common in Portuguese

India. Soon after, Pedro Barreto (appointed governor of the fort of

Sofála), by high promises, allured the poet to attend him thither. The

governor of a distant fort, in a barbarous country, shares in some

measure the fate of an exile. Yet, though the only motive of Barreto

was, in this unpleasant situation, to retain the conversation of Camoëns

at his table, it was his least care to render the life of his guest

agreeable. Chagrined with his treatment, and a considerable time having

elapsed in vain dependence upon Barreto, Camoëns resolved to return to

his native country. A ship, on the homeward voyage, at this time touched

at Sofála, and several gentlemen[10] who were on board were desirous

that Camoëns should accompany them. But this the governor ungenerously

endeavoured to prevent, and charged him with a debt for board. Anthony

de Cabral, however, and Hector de Sylveyra, paid the demand, and

Camoëns, says Faria, and the honour of Barreto were sold together.

After an absence of sixteen years, Camoëns, in 1569, returned to Lisbon,

unhappy even in his arrival, for the pestilence then raged in that city,

and prevented his publishing for three years. At last, in 1572, he

printed his Lusiad, which, in the opening of the first book, in a most

elegant turn of compliment, he addressed to his prince, King Sebastian,

then in his eighteenth year. The king, says the French translator, was

so pleased with his merit, that he gave the author a pension of 4000

reals, on condition that he should reside at court. But this salary,

says the same writer, was withdrawn by Cardinal Henry, who succeeded to

the crown of Portugal, lost by Sebastian at the battle of Alcazar.

But this story of the pension is very doubtful. Correa and other

contemporary authors do not mention it, though some late writers have

given credit to it. If Camoëns, however, had a pension, it is highly

probable that Henry deprived him of it. While Sebastian was devoted to

the chase, his grand-uncle, the cardinal, presided at the council board,

and Camoëns, in his address to the king, which closes the Lusiad,

advises him to exclude the clergy from State affairs. It was easy to see

that the cardinal was here intended. And Henry, besides, was one of

those statesmen who can perceive no benefit resulting to the public

from elegant literature. But it ought also to be added in completion of

his character, that under the narrow views and weak hands of this Henry,

the kingdom of Portugal fell into utter ruin; and on his death, which

closed a short inglorious reign, the crown of Lisbon, after a faint

struggle, was annexed to that of Spain. Such was the degeneracy of the

Portuguese, a degeneracy lamented in vain by Camoëns, whose observation

of it was imputed to him as a crime.

Though the great[11] patron of theological literature--a species the

reverse of that of Camoëns--certain it is, that the author of the Lusiad

was utterly neglected by Henry, under whose inglorious reign he died in

all the misery of poverty. By some, it is said, he died in an

almshouse. It appears, however, that he had not even the certainty of

subsistence which these houses provide. He had a black servant, who had

grown old with him, and who had long experienced his master's humanity.

This grateful dependant, a native of Java, who, according to some

writers, saved his master's life in the unhappy shipwreck where he lost

his effects, begged in the streets of Lisbon for the only man in

Portugal on whom God had bestowed those talents which have a tendency to

erect the spirit of a downward age. To the eye of a careful observer,

the fate of Camoëns throws great light on that of his country, and will

appear strictly connected with it. The same ignorance, the same

degenerate spirit, which suffered Camoëns to depend on his share of the

alms begged in the streets by his old hoary servant--the same spirit

which caused this, sank the kingdom of Portugal into the most abject

vassalage ever experienced by a conquered nation. While the grandees of

Portugal were blind to the ruin which impended over them, Camoëns beheld

it with a pungency of grief which hastened his end. In one of his

letters he has these remarkable words, "_Em fim accaberey à vida, e

verràm todos que fuy afeiçoada a minho patria_," etc.--"I am ending the

course of my life, the world will witness how I have loved my country. I

have returned, not only to die in her bosom, but to die with her." In

another letter, written a little before his death, he thus, yet with

dignity, complains, "Who has seen on so small a theatre as my poor bed,

such a representation of the disappointments of Fortune. And I, as if

she could not herself subdue me, I have yielded and become of her party;

for it were wild audacity to hope to surmount such accumulated evils."

In this unhappy situation, in 1579, in his sixty-second year, the year

after the fatal defeat of Don Sebastian, died Luis de Camoëns, the

greatest literary genius ever produced by Portugal; in martial courage

and spirit of honour nothing inferior to her greatest heroes. And in a

manner suitable to the poverty in which he died was he buried. Soon

after, however, many epitaphs honoured his memory; the greatness of his

merit was universally confessed, and his Lusiad was translated into

various languages.[12] Nor ought it to be omitted, that the man so

miserably neglected by the weak king Henry, was earnestly enquired after

by Philip of Spain when he assumed the crown of Lisbon. When Philip

heard that Camoëns was dead, both his words and his countenance

expressed his disappointment and grief.

From the whole tenor of his life, and from that spirit which glows

throughout the Lusiad, it evidently appears that the courage and manners

of Camoëns flowed from true greatness and dignity of soul. Though his

polished conversation was often courted by the great, he appears so

distant from servility that his imprudence in this respect is by some

highly blamed. Yet the instances of it by no means deserve that severity

of censure with which some writers have condemned him. Unconscious of

the feelings of a Camoëns, they knew not that a carelessness in securing

the smiles of fortune, and an open honesty of indignation, are almost

inseparable from the enthusiasm of fine imagination. The truth is, the

man possessed of true genius feels his greatest happiness in the

pursuits and excursions of the mind, and therefore makes an estimate of

things very different from that of him whose unremitting attention is

devoted to his external interest. The profusion of Camoëns is also

censured. Had he dissipated the wealth he acquired at Macao, his

profusion indeed had been criminal; but it does not appear that he ever

enjoyed any other opportunity of acquiring independence. But Camoëns was

unfortunate, and the unfortunate man is viewed--

"Through the dim shade his fate casts o'er him:

A shade that spreads its evening darkness o'er

His brightest virtues, while it shows his foibles

Crowding and obvious as the midnight stars,

Which, in the sunshine of prosperity

Never had been descried."

Yet, after the strictest discussion, when all the causes are weighed

together, the misfortunes of Camoëns will appear the fault and disgrace

of his age and country, and not of the man. His talents would have

secured him an apartment in the palace of Augustus, but such talents are

a curse to their possessor in an illiterate nation. In a beautiful,

digressive exclamation at the end of the Lusiad, he affords us a

striking view of the neglect which he experienced. Having mentioned how

the greatest heroes of antiquity revered and cherished the muse, he thus

characterizes the nobility of his own age and country.

"Alas! on Tago's hapless shore alone

The muse is slighted, and her charms unknown;

For this, no Virgil here attunes the lyre,

No Homer here awakes the hero's fire;

Unheard, in vain their native poet sings,

And cold neglect weighs dawn the muse's wings."

In such an age, and among such a barbarous nobility, what but wretched

neglect could be the fate of a Camoëns! After all, however, if he was

imprudent on his first appearance at the court of John III.; if the

honesty of his indignation led him into great imprudence, as certainly

it did, when at Goa he satirised the viceroy and the first persons in

power; yet let it also be remembered, that "The gifts of imagination

bring the heaviest task upon the vigilance of reason; and to bear those

faculties with unerring rectitude, or invariable propriety, requires a

degree of firmness and of cool attention, which doth not always attend

the higher gifts of the mind. Yet, difficult as nature herself seems to

have rendered the task of regularity to genius, it is the supreme

consolation of dullness and of folly to point with Gothic triumph to

those excesses which are the overflowings of faculties they never

enjoyed. Perfectly unconscious that they are indebted to their stupidity

for the consistency of their conduct, they plume themselves on an

imaginary virtue which has its origin in what is really their

disgrace.--Let such, if such dare approach the shrine of Camoëns,

withdraw to a respectful distance; and should they behold the ruins of

genius, or the weakness of an exalted mind, let them be taught to lament

that nature has left the noblest of her works imperfect."[13]

DISSERTATION ON THE LUSIAD, AND ON EPIC POETRY,

BY THE TRANSLATOR.

When Voltaire was in England, previous to his publication of his

Henriade, he published in English an essay on the epic poetry of the

European nations. In this he both highly praised, and severely attacked,

the Lusiad. In his French editions of this essay, he has made various

alterations, at different times, in the article on Camoëns. It is not,

however, improper to premise, that some most amazing falsities will be

here detected; the gross misrepresentation of every objection refuted;

and demonstration brought, that when Voltaire wrote his English essay,

his knowledge of the Lusiad was entirely borrowed from the bold, harsh,

unpoetical version of Fanshaw.

"While Trissino," says Voltaire, "was clearing away the rubbish in

Italy, which barbarity and ignorance had heaped up for ten centuries in

the way of the arts and sciences, Camoëns, in Portugal, steered a new

course, and acquired a reputation which lasts still among his countrymen

who pay as much respect to his memory as the English to Milton."

Among other passages of the Lusiad which he criticises is that where

"Adamastor, the giant of the Cape of Storms, appears to them, walking in

the depth of the sea; his head reaches to the clouds; the storms, the

winds, the thunders, and the lightnings hang about him; his arms are

extended over the waves. It is the guardian of that foreign ocean,

unploughed before by any ship. He complains of being obliged to submit

to fate, and to the audacious undertaking of the Portuguese, and

foretells them all the misfortunes they must undergo in the Indies. I

believe that such a fiction would be thought noble and proper in all

ages, and in all nations.

"There is another, which perhaps would have pleased the Italians as well

as the Portuguese, but no other nation besides: it is the enchanted

island, called the Island of Bliss, which the fleet finds in its way

home, just rising from the sea, for their comfort, and for their reward.

Camoëns describes that place, as Tasso some years after depicted his

island of Armida. There a supernatural power brings in all the beauties,

and presents all the pleasures which nature can afford, and the heart

may wish for; a goddess, enamoured with Vasco de Gama, carries him to

the top of a high mountain, from whence she shows him all the kingdoms

of the earth, and foretells the fate of Portugal.

"After Camoëns hath given loose to his fancy, in the description of the

pleasures which Gama and his crew enjoyed in the island, he takes care

to inform the reader that he ought to understand by this fiction nothing

but the satisfaction which the virtuous man feels, and the glory which

accrues to him, by the practice of virtue; but the best excuse for such

an invention is the charming style in which it is delivered (if we may

believe the Portuguese), for the beauty of the elocution sometimes makes

amends for the faults of the poet, as the colouring of Rubens makes some

defects in his figures pass unregarded.

"There is _another_ kind of machinery continued throughout all the poem,

which nothing can excuse; that is, an injudicious mixture of the heathen

gods with our religion. Gama in a storm addresses his prayers to Christ,

but it is Venus who comes to his relief; the heroes are Christians, and

the poet heathen. The main design which the Portuguese are supposed to

have (next to promoting their trade) is to propagate Christianity; yet

Jupiter, Bacchus, and Venus, have in their hands all the management of

the voyage. So incongruous a machinery casts a blemish upon the whole

poem; yet it shows at the same time how prevailing are its beauties

since the Portuguese like it with all its faults."

The Lusiad, says Voltaire, contains "a sort of epic poetry unheard of

before. No heroes are wounded a thousand different ways; no woman

enticed away, and the world overturned for her cause." But the very want

of these, in place of supporting the objection intended by Voltaire,

points out the happy judgment and peculiar excellence of Camoëns. If

Homer has given us all the fire and hurry of battles, he has also given

us all the uninteresting, tiresome detail. What reader but must be

tired with the deaths of a thousand heroes, who are never mentioned

before, nor afterwards, in the poem. Yet, in every battle we are wearied

out with such _Gazette_-returns of the slain and wounded as--

"Hector Priamides when Zeus him glory gave,

Assæus first, Autonoüs, he slew;

Ophites, Dolops, Klytis' son beside;

Opheltius also, Agelaüs too,

Æsymnus, and the battle-bide

Hippónoüs, chiefs on Danaian side,

And then, the multitude."

HOMER'S Iliad, bk. xi. 299, et seq.,

(W. G. T. BARTER'S translation.)

And corresponding to it is Virgil's Æneid, bk. x. line 747, et seq.:--

"By Cædicus Alcathoüs was slain;

Sacrator laid Hydaspes on the plain;

Orsès the strong to greater strength must yield,

He, with Parthenius, were by Rapo killed.

Then brave Messapus Ericetès slew,

Who from Lycaón's blood his lineage drew."

DRYDEN'S version.

With, such catalogues is every battle extended; and what can be more

tiresome than such uninteresting descriptions, and their imitations! If

the idea of the battle be raised by such enumeration, still the copy and

original are so near each other that they can never please in two

separate poems. Nor are the greater part of the battles of the Æneid

much more distant than those of the Iliad. Though Virgil with great art

has introduced a Camilla, a Pallas, and a Lausus, still, in many

particulars, and in the action upon the whole, there is such a sameness

with the Iliad, that the learned reader of the Æneid is deprived of the

pleasure inspired by originality. If the man of taste, however, will be

pleased to mark how the genius of a Virgil has managed a war after

Homer, he will certainly be tired with a dozen epic poems in the same

style. Where the siege of a town and battles are the subject of an epic,

there will, of necessity, in the characters and circumstances, be a

resemblance to Homer; and such poem must therefore want originality.

Happily for Tasso, the variation of manners, and his masterly

superiority over Homer in describing his duels, has given to his

Jerusalem an air of novelty. Yet, with all the difference between

Christian and pagan heroes, we have a Priam, an Agamemnon, an Achilles,

etc., armies slaughtered, and a city besieged. In a word, we have a

handsome copy of the Iliad in the Jerusalem Delivered. If some

imitations, however, have been successful, how many other epics of

ancient and modern times have hurried down the stream of oblivion! Some

of their authors had poetical merit, but the fault was in the choice of

their subjects. So fully is the strife of war exhausted by Homer, that

Virgil and Tasso could add to it but little novelty; no wonder,

therefore, that so many epics on battles and sieges have been suffered

to sink into utter neglect. Camoëns, perhaps, did not weigh these

circumstances, but the strength of his poetical genius directed him. He

could not but feel what it was to read Virgil after Homer; and the

original turn and force of his mind led him from the beaten track of

Helen's and Lavinia's, Achilles's and Hector's sieges and slaughters,

where the hero hews down, and drives to flight, whole armies with his

own sword. Camoëns was the first who wooed the modern Epic Muse, and she

gave him the wreath of a first lover; a sort of epic poetry unheard of

before; or, as Voltaire calls it, _une nouvelle espèce d'epopée_; and

the grandest subject it is (of profane history) which the world has ever

beheld.[14] A voyage esteemed too great for man to dare; the adventures

of this voyage through unknown oceans deemed unnavigable; the eastern

world happily discovered, and for ever indissolubly joined and given to

the western; the grand Portuguese empire in the East founded; the

humanization of mankind, and universal commerce the consequence! What

are the adventures of an old, fabulous hero's arrival in Britain, what

are Greece and Latium in arms for a woman compared to this! Troy is in

ashes, and even the Roman empire is no more. But the effects of the

voyage, adventures, and bravery of the hero of the Lusiad will be felt

and beheld, and perhaps increase in importance, while the world shall

remain.

Happy in his choice, happy also was the genius of Camoëns in the method

of pursuing his subject. He has not, like Tasso, given it a total

appearance of fiction; nor has he, like Lucan, excluded allegory and

poetical machinery. Whether he intended it or not (for his genius was

sufficient to suggest its propriety), the judicious precept of

Petronius[15] is the model of the Lusiad. That elegant writer proposes a

poem on the civil war, and no poem, ancient or modern, merits the

character there sketched out in any degree comparative to the Lusiad. A

truth of history is preserved; yet, what is improper for the historian,

the ministry of Heaven is employed, and the free spirit of poetry throws

itself into fictions which makes the whole appear as an effusion of

prophetic fury, and not like a rigid detail of facts, given under the

sanction of witnesses. Contrary to Lucan, who, in the above rules, drawn

from the nature of poetry, is severely condemned by Petronius, Camoëns

conducts his poem _per ambages Deorumque ministeria_. The apparition,

which in the night hovers athwart the fleet near the Cape of Good Hope,

is the grandest fiction in human composition; the invention his own! In

the Island of Venus, the use of which fiction in an epic poem is also

his own, he has given the completest assemblage of all the flowers which

have ever adorned the bowers of love. And, never was the _furentis animi

vaticinatio_ more conspicuously displayed than in the prophetic song,

the view of the spheres, and the globe of the earth. Tasso's imitation

of the Island of Venus is not equal to the original; and, though

"Virgil's myrtles[16] dropping blood are nothing to Tasso's enchanted

forest," what are all Ismeno's enchantments to the grandeur and horror

of the appearance, prophecy, and vanishment of the spectre of

Camoëns![17] It has long been agreed among critics, that the solemnity

of religious observances gives great dignity to the historical narrative

of epic poetry. Camoëns, in the embarkation of the fleet, and in several

other places, is peculiarly happy in the dignity of religious

allusions. Manners and character are also required in the epic poem. But

all the epics which have appeared are, except two, mere copies of the

Iliad in these respects. Every one has its Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax,

and Ulysses; its calm, furious, gross, and intelligent hero. Camoëns and

Milton happily left this beaten track, this exhausted field, and have

given us pictures of manners unknown in the Iliad, the Æneid, and all

those poems which may be classed with the Thebaid. The Lusiad abounds

with pictures of manners, from those of the highest chivalry to those of

the rudest, fiercest, and most innocent barbarism. In the fifth, sixth,

and ninth books, Leonardo and Veloso are painted in stronger colours

than any of the inferior characters in Virgil. But _character_, indeed,

is not the excellence of the Æneid. That of Monzaida, the friend of

Gama, is much superior to that of Achates. The base, selfish, perfidious

and cruel character of the Zamorim and the Moors, are painted in the

strongest colours; and the character of Gama himself is that of the

finished hero. His cool command of his passions, his deep sagacity, his

fixed intrepidity, his tenderness of heart, his manly piety, and his

high enthusiasm in the love of his country are all displayed in the

superlative degree. Let him who objects the want of character to the

Lusiad, beware lest he stumble upon its praise; lest he only say, it

wants an Achilles, a Hector, and a Priam. And, to the novelty of the

manners of the Lusiad let the novelty of fire-arms also be added. It has

been said that the buckler, the bow, and the spear, must continue the

arms of poetry. Yet, however unsuccessful others may have been, Camoëns

has proved that fire-arms may be introduced with the greatest dignity,

and the finest effect in the epic poem.

As the grand interest of commerce and of mankind forms the subject of

the Lusiad, so, with great propriety, as necessary accompaniments to the

voyage of his hero, the author has given poetical pictures of the four

parts of the world--in the third book a view of Europe; in the fifth, a

view of Africa; and in the tenth, a picture of Asia and America. Homer

and Virgil have been highly praised for their judgment in the choice of

subjects which interested their countrymen, and Statius has been as

severely condemned for his uninteresting choice. But, though the subject

of Camoëns be particularly interesting to his own countrymen, it has

also the peculiar happiness to be the poem of every trading nation. It

is the epic poem of the birth of commerce, and, in a particular manner,

the epic poem of whatever country has the control and possession of the

commerce of India.[18]

An unexhausted fertility and variety of poetical description, an

unexhausted elevation of sentiment, and a constant tenor of the grand

simplicity of diction, complete the character of the Lusiad of Camoëns:

a poem which, though it has hitherto received from the public most

unmerited neglect, and from the critics most flagrant injustice, was yet

better understood by the greatest poet of Italy. Tasso never did his

judgment more credit than when he confessed that he dreaded Camoëns as a

rival; or his generosity more honour than when he addressed the elegant

sonnet to the hero of the Lusiad, commencing--

"Vasco, le cui felici, ardite antenne

In contro al sol, che ne riporta il giorno."

It only remains to give some account of the version of the Lusiad which

is now offered to the public. Beside the translations mentioned in the

life of Camoëns, M. Duperron De Castera, in 1735, gave, in French prose,

a loose unpoetical paraphrase[19] of the Lusiad. Nor does Sir Richard

Fanshaw's English version, published during the usurpation of Cromwell,

merit a better character. Though stanza be rendered for stanza, though

at first view it has the appearance of being exceedingly literal, this

version is nevertheless exceedingly unfaithful. Uncountenanced by his

original, Fanshaw--

"Teems with many a dead-born just."[20]

Nor had he the least idea of the dignity of the epic style,[21] or of

the true spirit of poetical translation. For this, indeed, no definite

rule can be given. The translator's feelings alone must direct him, for

the spirit of poetry is sure to evaporate in literal translation.

Indeed, literal translation of poetry is a solecism. You may construe

your author, indeed, but, if with some translators you boast that you

have left your author to speak for himself, that you have neither added

nor diminished, you have in reality grossly abused him, and deceived

yourself. Your literal translation can have no claim to the original

felicities of expression; the energy, elegance, and fire of the original

poetry. It may bear, indeed, a resemblance; but such a one as a corpse

in the sepulchre bears to the former man when he moved in the bloom and

vigour of life.

_Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus

Interpres,_

was the taste of the Augustan age. None but a poet can translate a poet.

The freedom which this precept gives, will, therefore, in a poet's

hands, not only infuse the energy, elegance, and fire of his author's

poetry into his own version, but will give it also the spirit of an

original.

He who can construe may perform all that is claimed by the literal

translator. He who attempts the manner of translation prescribed by

Horace, ventures upon a task of genius. Yet, however daring the

undertaking, and however he may have failed in it, the translator

acknowledges, that in this spirit he has endeavoured to give the Lusiad

in English. Even farther liberties, in one or two instances, seemed to

him advantageous---- But a minuteness[22] in the mention of these will

not appear with a good grace in this edition of his work; and besides,

the original is in the hands of the world.

MICKLE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE LUSIAD.

If a concatenation of events centred in one great action--events which

gave birth to the present commercial system of the world--if these be of

the first importance in the civil history of mankind, then the Lusiad,

of all other poems, challenges the attention of the philosopher, the

politician, and the gentleman.

In contradistinction to the Iliad and the Æneid, the Paradise Lost has

been called the Epic Poem of Religion. In the same manner may the Lusiad

be named the Epic Poem of Commerce. The happy completion of the most

important designs of Henry, Duke of Viseo, prince of Portugal, to whom

Europe owes both Gama and Columbus, both the eastern and the western

worlds, constitutes the subject of this celebrated epic poem. But before

we proceed to the historical introduction necessary to elucidate a poem

founded on such an important period of history, some attention is due to

the opinion of those theorists in political philosophy who lament that

India was ever discovered, and who assert that increase of trade is only

the parent of degeneracy, and the nurse of every vice.

Much, indeed, may be urged on this side of the question; but much, also,

may be urged against every institution relative to man. Imperfection, if

not necessary to humanity, is at least the certain attendant on

everything human. Though some part of the traffic with many countries

resemble Solomon's importation of apes and peacocks; though the

superfluities of life, the baubles of the opulent, and even the luxuries

which enervate the irresolute and administer disease, are introduced by

the intercourse of navigation, yet the extent of the benefits which

attend it are also to be considered before the man of cool reason will

venture to pronounce that the world is injured, and rendered less

virtuous and happy by the increase of commerce.

If a view of the state of mankind, where commerce opens no intercourse

between nation and nation be neglected, unjust conclusions will

certainly follow. Where the state of barbarians, and of countries under

different degrees of civilization are candidly weighed, we may

reasonably expect a just decision. As evidently as the appointment of

nature gives pasture to the herds, so evidently is man born for society.

As every other animal is in its natural state when in the situation

which its instinct requires, so man, when his reason is cultivated, is

then, and only then, in the state proper to his nature. The life of the

naked savage, who feeds on acorns and sleeps like a beast in his den, is

commonly called the natural state of man; but, if there be any propriety

in this assertion, his rational faculties compose no part of his nature,

and were given not to be used. If the savage, therefore, live in a state

contrary to the appointment of nature, it must follow that he is not so

happy as nature intended him to be. And a view of his true character

will confirm this conclusion. The reveries, the fairy dreams of a

Rousseau, may figure the paradisaical life of a Hottentot, but it is

only in such dreams that the superior happiness of the barbarian exists.

The savage, it is true, is reluctant to leave his manner of life; but,

unless we allow that he is a proper judge of the modes of living, his

attachment to his own by no means proves that he is happier than he

might otherwise have been. His attachment only exemplifies the amazing

power of habit in reconciling the human breast to the most uncomfortable

situations. If the intercourse of mankind in some instances be

introductive of vice, the want of it as certainly excludes the exertion

of the noblest virtues; and, if the seeds of virtue are indeed in the

heart, they often lie dormant, and even unknown to the savage possessor.

The most beautiful description of a tribe of savages (which we may be

assured is from real life) occurs in these words:[23] And the five spies

of Dan "came to Laish, and saw the people that were there, how they

dwelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure; and

there was no magistrate in the land, that might put them to shame in

anything...." And the spies said to their brethren, "Arise, that we may

go up against them; for we have seen the land, and, behold, it is very

good.... And they came unto Laish, unto a people that were at quiet and

secure: and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and burnt the

city with fire. And there was no deliverer, because it was far from

Zidon, and they had no business with any man." However the happy

simplicity of this society may please the man of fine imagination, the

true philosopher will view the men of Laish with other eyes. However

virtuous he may suppose one generation, it requires an alteration of

human nature to preserve the children of the next in the same generous

estrangement from the selfish passions--from those passions which are

the parents of the acts of injustice. When his wants are easily

supplied, the manners of the savage will be simple, and often humane,

for the human heart is not vicious without objects of temptation. But

these will soon occur; he that gathers the greatest quantity of fruit

will be envied by the less industrious. The uninformed mind seems

insensible of the idea of the right of possession which the labour of

acquirement gives. When want is pressing, and the supply at hand, the

only consideration with such minds is the danger of seizing it; and

where there is no magistrate to put to shame in anything, depredation

will soon display all its horrors. Let it even be admitted that the

innocence of the men of Laish could secure them from the consequences of

their own unrestrained desires, could even this impossibility be

surmounted, still are they a wretched prey to the first invaders, and

because they have no business with any man, they will find no deliverer.

While human nature is the same, the fate of Laish will always be the

fate of the weak and defenceless; and thus the most amiable description

of savage life raises in our minds the strongest imagery of the misery

and impossible continuance of such a state. But if the view of these

innocent people terminate in horror, with what contemplation shall we

behold the wilds of Africa and America? The tribes of America, it is

true, have degrees of policy greatly superior to anything understood by

the men of Laish. Great masters of martial oratory, their popular

assemblies are schools open to all their youth. In these they not only

learn the history of their nation, and what they have to fear from the

strength and designs of their enemies, but they also imbibe the most

ardent spirit of war. The arts of stratagem are their study, and the

most athletic exercises of the field their employment and delight; and,

what is their greatest praise, they have magistrates "to put them to

shame." They inflict no corporeal punishment on their countrymen, it is

true; but a reprimand from an elder, delivered in the assembly, is

esteemed by them a deeper degradation and severer punishment than any of

those too often most impolitically adopted by civilized nations. Yet,

though possessed of this advantage--an advantage impossible to exist in

a large commercial empire--and though masters of great martial policy,

their condition, upon the whole, is big with the most striking

demonstration of the misery and unnatural state of such very imperfect

civilization. "Multiply and replenish the earth" is an injunction of the

best political philosophy ever given to man. Nature has appointed man to

cultivate the earth, to increase in number by the food which its culture

gives, and by this increase of brethren to remove some, and to mitigate

all, the natural miseries of human life. But in direct opposition to

this is the political state of the wild aborigines of America. Their

lands, luxuriant in climate, are often desolate wastes, where thousands

of miles hardly support a few hundreds of savage hunters. Attachment to

their own tribe constitutes their highest idea of virtue; but this

virtue includes the most brutal depravity, makes them esteem the man of

every other tribe as an enemy, as one with whom nature had placed them

in a state of war, and had commanded to destroy.[24] And to this

principle their customs and ideas of honour serve as rituals and

ministers. The cruelties practised by the American savages on their

prisoners of war (and war is their chief employment) convey every idea

expressed by the word diabolical, and give a most shocking view of the

degradation of human nature. But what peculiarly completes the character

of the savage is his horrible superstition. In the most distant nations

the savage is, in this respect, the same. The terror of evil spirits

continually haunts him; his God is beheld as a relentless tyrant, and is

worshipped often with cruel rites, always with a heart full of horror

and fear. In all the numerous accounts of savage worship, one trace of

filial dependence is not to be found. The very reverse of that happy

idea is the hell of the ignorant mind. Nor is this barbarism confined

alone to those ignorant tribes whom we call savages. The vulgar of every

country possess it in certain degrees, proportionated to their

opportunities of conversation with the more enlightened. Sordid

disposition and base ferocity, together with the most unhappy

superstition, are everywhere the proportionate attendants of ignorance

and severe want. And ignorance and want are only removed by intercourse

and the offices of society. So self-evident are these positions, that it

requires an apology for insisting upon them; but the apology is at hand.

He who has read knows how many eminent writers,[25] and he who has

conversed knows how many respectable names, connect the idea of

innocence and happiness with the life of the savage and the unimproved

rustic. To fix the character of the savage is therefore necessary, ere

we examine the assertion, that "it had been happy for both the old and

the new worlds if the East and West Indies had never been discovered."

The bloodshed and the attendant miseries which the unparalleled rapine

and cruelties of the Spaniards spread over the new world, indeed

disgrace human nature. The great and flourishing empires of Mexico and

Peru, steeped in the blood of forty millions of their sons, present a

melancholy prospect, which must excite the indignation of every good

heart. Yet such desolation is not the certain consequence of discovery.

And, even should we allow that the depravity of human nature is so great

that the avarice of the merchant and rapacity of the soldier will

overwhelm with misery every new-discovered country, still, are there

other, more comprehensive views, to be taken, ere we decide against the

intercourse introduced by navigation. When we weigh the happiness of

Europe in the scale of political philosophy, we are not to confine our

eye to the dreadful ravages of Attila the Hun, or of Alaric the Goth. If

the waters of a stagnated lake are disturbed by the spade when led into

new channels, we ought not to inveigh against the alteration because the

waters are fouled at the first; we are to wait to see the streamlets

refine and spread beauty and utility through a thousand vales which they

never visited before. Such were the conquests of Alexander, temporary

evils, but civilization and happiness followed in the bloody track. And,

though disgraced with every barbarity, happiness has also followed the

conquests of the Spaniards in the other hemisphere. Though the villainy

of the Jesuits defeated their schemes of civilization in many countries,

the labours of that society have been crowned with a success in Paraguay

and in Canada, which reflects upon their industry the greatest honour.

The customs and cruelties of many American tribes still disgrace human

nature, but in Paraguay and Canada the natives have been brought to

relish the blessings of society, and the arts of virtuous and civil

life. If Mexico is not so populous as it once was, neither is it so

barbarous;[26] the shrieks of the human victim do not now resound from

temple to temple, nor does the human heart, held up reeking to the sun,

imprecate the vengeance of Heaven on the guilty empire. And, however

impolitically despotic the Spanish governments may be, still do these

colonies enjoy the opportunities of improvement, which in every age

arise from the knowledge of commerce and of letters--opportunities which

were never enjoyed in South America under the reigns of Montezuma and

Atabalipa. But if from Spanish, we turn our eyes to British America,

what a glorious prospect! Here, formerly, on the wild lawn, perhaps

twice in the year, a few savage hunters kindled their evening fire,

kindled it more to protect them from evil spirits and beasts of prey,

than from the cold, and with their feet pointed to it, slept on the

ground. Here, now, population spreads her thousands, and society appears

in all its blessings of mutual help, and the mutual lights of

intellectual improvement. "What work of art, or power, or public

utility, has ever equalled the glory of having peopled a continent,

without guilt or bloodshed, with a multitude of free and happy

commonwealths; to have given them the best arts of life and government!"

To have given a savage continent an image of the British Constitution

is, indeed, the greatest glory of the British crown, "a greater than any

other nation ever acquired;" and from the consequences of the genius of

Henry, Duke of Viseo, did the British American empire arise, an empire

which, unless retarded by the illiberal and inhuman spirit of religious

fanaticism, will in a few centuries, perhaps, be the glory of the world.

Stubborn indeed must be the theorist who will deny the improvement,

virtue, and happiness which, in the result, the voyage of Columbus has

spread over the western world. The happiness which Europe and Asia have

received from the intercourse with each other, cannot hitherto, it must

be owned, be compared either with the possession of it, or the source of

its increase established in America. Yet, let the man of the most

melancholy views estimate all the wars and depredations which are

charged upon the Portuguese and other European nations, still will the

eastern world appear considerably advantaged by the voyage of Gama. If

seas of blood have been shed by the Portuguese, nothing new was

introduced into India. War and depredation were no unheard-of strangers

on the banks of the Ganges, nor could the nature of the civil

establishments of the eastern nations secure a lasting peace. The

ambition of their native princes was only diverted into new channels,

into channels which, in the natural course of human affairs, will

certainly lead to permanent governments, established on improved laws

and just dominion. Yet, even ere such governments are formed, is Asia no

loser by the arrival of Europeans. The horrid massacres and unbounded

rapine which, according to their own annals, followed the victories of

their Asian conquerors were never equalled by the worst of their

European vanquishers. Nor is the establishment of improved governments

in the East the dream of theory. The superiority of the civil and

military arts of the British, notwithstanding the hateful character of

some individuals, is at this day beheld in India with all the

astonishment of admiration; and admiration is always followed, though

often with retarded steps, by the strong desire of similar improvement.

Long after the fall of the Roman empire the Roman laws were adopted by

nations which ancient Rome esteemed as barbarous. And thus, in the

course of ages, the British laws, according to every test of

probability, will have a most important effect, will fulfil the prophecy

of Camoëns, and transfer to the British the high compliment he pays to

his countrymen--

"Beneath their sway majestic, wise, and mild,

Proud of her victor's laws thrice happier India smiled."

In former ages, and within these few years, the fertile empire of India

has exhibited every scene of human misery, under the undistinguishing

ravages of their Mohammedan and native princes; ravages only equalled

in European history by those committed under Atilla, surnamed "the

scourge of God," and "the destroyer of nations." The ideas of patriotism

and of honour were seldom known in the cabinets of the eastern princes

till the arrival of the Europeans. Every species of assassination was

the policy of their courts, and every act of unrestrained rapine and

massacre followed the path of victory. But some of the Portuguese

governors, and many of the English officers, have taught them that

humanity to the conquered is the best, the truest policy. The brutal

ferocity of their own conquerors is now the object of their greatest

dread; and the superiority of the British in war has convinced their

princes,[27] that an alliance with the British is the surest guarantee

of their national peace and prosperity. While the English East India

Company are possessed of their present greatness, it is in their power

to diffuse over the East every blessing which flows from the wisest and

most humane policy. Long ere the Europeans arrived, a failure of the

crop of rice, the principal food of India, had spread the devastations

of famine over the populous plains of Bengal. And never, from the seven

years' famine of ancient Egypt to the present day, was there a natural

scarcity in any country which did not enrich the proprietors of the

granaries. The Mohammedan princes, and Moorish traders have often added

all the horrors of an artificial, to a natural, famine. But, however

some Portuguese or other governors may stand accused, much was left for

the humanity of the more exalted policy of an Albuquerque, or a Castro.

And under such European governors as these, the distresses of the East

have often been alleviated by a generosity of conduct, and a train of

resources formerly unknown in Asia. Absurd and impracticable were that

scheme which would introduce the British laws into India without the

deepest regard to the manners and circumstances peculiar to the people.

But that spirit of liberty upon which they are founded, and that

security of property which is their leading principle, must in time have

a wide and stupendous effect. The abject spirit of Asiatic submission

will be taught to see, and to claim, those rights of nature, of which

the dispirited and passive Hindus could, till lately, hardly form an

idea. From this, as naturally as the noon succeeds the dawn, must the

other blessings of civilization arise. For, though the four great castes

of India are almost inaccessible to the introduction of other manners,

and of other literature than their own, happily there is in human nature

a propensity to change. Nor may the political philosopher be deemed an

enthusiast who would boldly prophesy, that unless the British be driven

from India the general superiority which they bear will, ere many

generations shall have passed, induce the most intelligent of India to

break the shackles of their absurd superstitions,[28] and lead them to

partake of those advantages which arise from the free scope and due

cultivation of the rational powers. In almost every instance the Indian

institutions are contrary to the feelings and wishes of nature. And

ignorance and bigotry, their two chief pillars, can never secure

unalterable duration. We have certain proof that the horrid custom of

burning the wives along with the body of the deceased husband has

continued for upwards of fifteen hundred years; we are also certain that

within these twenty years it has begun to fall into disuse. Together

with the alteration of this most striking feature of Indian manners,

other assimilations to European sentiments have already taken place. Nor

can the obstinacy even of the conceited Chinese always resist the desire

of imitating the Europeans, a people who in arts and arms are so greatly

superior to themselves. The use of the twenty-four letters, by which we

can express every language, appeared at first as miraculous to the

Chinese. Prejudice cannot always deprive that people, who are not

deficient in selfish cunning, of the ease and expedition of an alphabet;

and it is easy to foresee that, in the course of a few centuries, some

alphabet will certainly take the place of the 60,000 arbitrary marks

which now render the cultivation of the Chinese literature not only a

labour of the utmost difficulty, but even the attainment impossible

beyond a very limited degree. And from the introduction of an alphabet,

what improvements may not be expected from the laborious industry of the

Chinese! Though most obstinately attached to their old customs, yet

there is a tide in the manners of nations which is sudden and rapid, and

which acts with a kind of instinctive fury against ancient prejudice and

absurdity. It was that nation of merchants, the Phoenicians, which

diffused the use of letters through the ancient, and commerce will

undoubtedly diffuse the same blessings through the modern, world.

To this view of the political happiness which is sure to be introduced

in proportion to civilization, let the divine add what may be reasonably

expected from such opportunity of the increase of religion. A factory of

merchants, indeed, has seldom been found to be a school of piety; yet,

when the general manners of a people become assimilated to those of a

more rational worship, something more than ever was produced by an

infant mission, or the neighbourhood of an infant colony, may then be

reasonably expected, and even foretold.

In estimating the political happiness of a people, nothing is of greater

importance than their capacity of, and tendency to, improvement. As a

dead lake, to continue our former illustration, will remain in the same

state for ages and ages, so would the bigotry and superstitions of the

East continue the same. But if the lake is begun to be opened into a

thousand rivulets, who knows over what unnumbered fields, barren before,

they may diffuse the blessings of fertility, and turn a dreary

wilderness into a land of society and joy.

In contrast to this, let the Gold Coast and other immense regions of

Africa be contemplated--

"Afric behold; alas, what altered view!

Her lands uncultured, and her sons untrue;

Ungraced with all that sweetens human life,

Savage and fierce they roam in brutal strife;

Eager they grasp the gifts which culture yields,

Yet naked roam their own neglected fields....

Unnumber'd tribes as bestial grazers stray,

By laws unform'd, unform'd by Reason's sway.

Far inward stretch the mournful sterile dales,

Where on the parch'd hill-side pale famine wails."

LUSIAD X.

Let us consider how many millions of these unhappy savages are dragged

from their native fields, and cut off for ever from all the hopes and

all the rights to which human birth entitled them. And who would

hesitate to pronounce that negro the greatest of patriots, who, by

teaching his countrymen the arts of society, should teach them to defend

themselves in the possession of their fields, their families, and their

own personal liberties?

Evident, however, as it is, that the voyages of Gama and Columbus have

already carried a superior degree of happiness, and the promise of

infinitely more, to the eastern and western worlds; yet the advantages

to Europe from the discovery of these regions may perhaps be denied. But

let us view what Europe was, ere the genius of Don Henry gave birth to

the spirit of modern discovery.

Several ages before this period the feudal system had degenerated into

the most absolute tyranny. The barons exercised the most despotic

authority over their vassals, and every scheme of public utility was

rendered impracticable by their continual petty wars with each other; to

which they led their dependents as dogs to the chase. Unable to read, or

to write his own name, the chieftain was entirely possessed by the most

romantic opinion of military glory, and the song of his domestic

minstrel constituted his highest idea of fame. The classic authors slept

on the shelves of the monasteries, their dark but happy asylum, while

the life of the monks resembled that of the fattened beeves which loaded

their tables. Real abilities were indeed possessed by a Duns Scotus and

a few others; but these were lost in the most trifling subtleties of a

sophistry which they dignified with the name of casuistical divinity.

Whether Adam and Eve were created with navels? and How many thousand

angels might at the same instant dance upon the point of the finest

needle without one jostling another? were two of the several topics of

like importance which excited the acumen and engaged the controversies

of the learned. While every branch of philosophical, of rational

investigation, was thus unpursued and unknown, commerce, which is

incompatible with the feudal system, was equally neglected and

unimproved. Where the mind is enlarged and enlightened by learning,

plans of commerce will rise into action, and these, in return, will from

every part of the world bring new acquirements to philosophy and

science. The birth of learning and commerce may be different, but their

growth is mutual and dependent upon each other. They not only assist

each other, but the same enlargement of mind which is necessary for

perfection in the one is also necessary for perfection in the other; and

the same causes impede, and are alike destructive of, both. The

INTERCOURSE of mankind is the parent of each. According to the

confinement or extent of intercourse, barbarity or civilization

proportionately prevail. In the dark, monkish ages, the intercourse of

the learned was as much impeded and confined as that of the merchant. A

few unwieldy vessels coasted the shores of Europe, and mendicant friars

and ignorant pilgrims carried a miserable account of what was passing in

the world from monastery to monastery. What doctor had last disputed on

the peripatetic philosophy at some university, or what new heresy had

last appeared, not only comprised the whole of their literary

intelligence, but was delivered with little accuracy, and received with

as little attention. While this thick cloud of mental darkness

overspread the western world, was Don Henry, prince of Portugal, born;

born to set mankind free from the feudal system, and to give to the

whole world every advantage, every light that may possibly be diffused

by the intercourse of unlimited commerce:--

"For then from ancient gloom emerg'd

The rising world of trade: the genius, then,

Of navigation, that in hopeless sloth

Had slumber'd on the vast Atlantic deep

For idle ages, starting heard at last

The Lusitanian prince, who, Heaven-inspir'd,

To love of useful glory rous'd mankind,

And in unbounded commerce mix'd the world."

THOMSON.

In contrast to this melancholy view of human nature, sunk in barbarism

and benighted with ignorance, let the present state of Europe be

impartially estimated. Yet, though the great increase of opulence and

learning cannot be denied, there are some who assert that virtue and

happiness have as greatly declined. And the immense overflow of riches,

from the East in particular, has been pronounced big with destruction to

the British empire. Everything human, it is true, has its dark as well

as its bright side; but let these popular complaints be examined, and it

will be found that modern Europe, and the British empire in a very

particular manner, have received the greatest and most solid advantages

from the modern, enlarged system of commerce. The magic of the old

romances, which could make the most withered, deformed hag, appear as

the most beautiful virgin, is every day verified in popular declamation.

Ancient days are there painted in the most amiable simplicity, and the

modern in the most odious colours. Yet, what man of fortune in England

lives in that stupendous gross luxury which every day was exhibited in

the Gothic castles of the old chieftains! Four or five hundred knights

and squires in the domestic retinue of a warlike earl was not uncommon,

nor was the pomp of embroidery inferior to the profuse waste of their

tables; in both instances unequalled by all the mad excesses of the

present age.

While the baron thus lived in all the wild glare of Gothic luxury,

agriculture was almost totally neglected, and his meaner vassals fared

harder, infinitely less comfortably, than the meanest industrious

labourers of England do now; where the lands are uncultivated, the

peasants, ill-clothed, ill-lodged, and poorly fed, pass their miserable

days in sloth and filth, totally ignorant of every advantage, of every

comfort which nature lays at their feet. He who passes from the trading

towns and cultured fields of England to those remote villages of

Scotland or Ireland which claim this description, is astonished at the

comparative wretchedness of their destitute inhabitants; but few

consider that these villages only exhibit a view of what Europe was ere

the spirit of commerce diffused the blessings which naturally flow from

her improvements. In the Hebrides the failure of a harvest almost

depopulates an island. Having little or no traffic to purchase grain,

numbers of the young and hale betake themselves to the continent in

quest of employment and food, leaving a few, less adventurous, behind,

to beget a new race, the heir of the same fortune. Yet from the same

cause, from the want of traffic, the kingdom of England has often felt

more dreadful effects than these. Even in the days when her Henries and

Edwards plumed themselves with the trophies of France, how often has

famine spread all her horrors over city and village? Our modern

histories neglect this characteristic feature of ancient days; but the

rude chronicles of these ages inform us, that three or four times in

almost every reign was England thus visited. The failure of the crop was

then severely felt, and two bad harvests in succession were almost

insupportable. But commerce has now opened another scene, has armed

government with the happiest power that can be exerted by the rulers of

a nation--the power to prevent every extremity[29] which may possibly

arise from bad harvests; extremities, which, in former ages, were

esteemed more dreadful visitations of the wrath of Heaven than the

pestilence itself. Yet modern London is not so certainly defended

against the latter, its ancient visitor, than the commonwealth by the

means of commerce, under a just and humane government, is secured

against the ravages of the former. If, from these great outlines of the

happiness enjoyed by a commercial over an uncommercial nation, we turn

our eyes to the manners, the advantages will be found no less in favour

of the civilized.

Whoever is inclined to declaim at the vices of the present age, let him

read, and be convinced, that the Gothic ages were less virtuous. If the

spirit of chivalry prevented effeminacy, it was the foster-father of a

ferocity of manners now happily unknown. Rapacity, avarice, and

effeminacy are the vices ascribed to the increase of commerce; and in

some degree, it must be confessed, they follow her steps. Yet infinitely

more dreadful, as every palatinate in Europe often felt, were the

effects of the two first under the feudal lords than can possibly be

experienced under any system of trade. The virtues and vices of human

nature are the same in every age: they only receive different

modifications, and are dormant, or awakened into action, under different

circumstances. The feudal lord had it infinitely more in his power to be

rapacious than the merchant. And whatever avarice may attend the trader,

his intercourse with the rest of mankind lifts him greatly above that

brutish ferocity which actuates the savage, often the rustic, and in

general characterizes the ignorant part of mankind. The abolition of the

feudal system, a system of absolute slavery, and that equality of

mankind which affords the protection of property, and every other

incitement to industry, are the glorious gifts which the spirit of

commerce, awakened by Prince Henry of Portugal, has bestowed upon Europe

in general; and, as if directed by the manes of his mother, a daughter

of England, upon the British empire in particular. In the vice of

effeminacy alone, perhaps, do we exceed our ancestors; yet, even here we

have infinitely the advantage over them. The brutal ferocity of former

ages is now lost, and the general mind is humanized. The savage breast

is the native soil of revenge; a vice, of all others, peculiarly stamped

with the character of hell. But the mention of this was reserved for the

character of the savages of Europe. The savage of every country is

implacable when injured; but among some, revenge has its measure. When

an American Indian is murdered his kindred pursue the murderer; and, as

soon as blood has atoned for blood, the wilds of America hear the

hostile parties join in their mutual lamentations over the dead, whom,

as an oblivion of malice, they bury together. But the measure of

revenge, never to be full, was left for the demi-savages of Europe. The

vassals of the feudal lord entered into his quarrels with the most

inexorable rage. Just or unjust was no consideration of theirs. It was a

family feud; no farther inquiry was made; and from age to age, the

parties, who never injured each other, breathed nothing but mutual

rancour and revenge. And actions, suitable to this horrid spirit,

everywhere confessed its virulent influence. Such were the late days of

Europe, admired by the ignorant for the innocence of manners. Resentment

of injury, indeed, is natural; and there is a degree which is honest,

and though warm, far from inhuman. But if it is the hard task of

humanized virtue to preserve the feeling of an injury unmixed with the

slightest criminal wish of revenge, how impossible is it for the savage

to attain the dignity of forgiveness, the greatest ornament of human

nature. As in individuals, a virtue will rise into a vice, generosity

into blind profusion, and even mercy into criminal lenity, so civilized

manners will lead the opulent into effeminacy. But let it be considered,

this consequence is by no means the certain result of civilization.

Civilization, on the contrary, provides the most effectual preventive of

this evil. Where classical literature prevails the manly spirit which it

breathes must be diffused; whenever frivolousness predominates, when

refinement degenerates into whatever enervates the mind, literary

ignorance is sure to complete the effeminate character. A mediocrity of

virtues and of talents is the lot of the great majority of mankind; and

even this mediocrity, if cultivated by a liberal education, will

infallibly secure its possessor against those excesses of effeminacy

which are really culpable. To be of plain manners it is not necessary to

be a clown, or to wear coarse clothes; nor is it necessary to lie on the

ground and feed like the savage to be truly manly. The beggar who,

behind the hedge, divides his offals with his dog has often more of the

real sensualist than he who dines at an elegant table. Nor need we

hesitate to assert, that he who, unable to preserve a manly elegance of

manners, degenerates into the _petit maître_, would have been, in any

age or condition, equally insignificant and worthless. Some, when they

talk of the debauchery of the present age, seem to think that the former

ages were all innocence. But this is ignorance of human nature. The

debauchery of a barbarous age is gross and brutal; that of a gloomy,

superstitious one, secret, excessive, and murderous; that of a more

polished one, much happier for the fair sex,[30] and certainly in no

sense so big with political unhappiness. If one disease has been

imported from America,[31] the most valuable medicines have likewise

been brought from those regions; and distempers, which were thought

invincible by our forefathers, are now cured. If the luxuries of the

Indies usher disease to our tables the consequence is not unknown; the

wise and the temperate receive no injury, and intemperance has been the

destroyer of mankind in every age. The opulence of ancient Rome produced

a luxury of manners which proved fatal to that mighty empire. But the

effeminate sensualists of those ages were not men of intellectual

cultivation. The enlarged ideas, the generous and manly feelings

inspired by a liberal education, were utterly unknown to them. Unformed

by that wisdom which arises from science and true philosophy, they were

gross barbarians, dressed in the mere outward tinsel of

civilization.[32] Where the enthusiasm of military honour characterizes

the rank of gentlemen that nation will rise into empire. But no sooner

does conquest give a continued security than the mere soldier

degenerates; and the old veterans are soon succeeded by a new

generation, illiterate as their fathers, but destitute of their virtues

and experience. Polite literature not only humanizes the heart, but also

wonderfully strengthens and enlarges the mind. Moral and political

philosophy are its peculiar provinces, and are never happily cultivated

without its assistance. But, where ignorance characterizes the body of

the nobility, the most insipid dissipation and the very idleness and

effeminacy of luxury are sure to follow. Titles and family are then the

only merit, and the few men of business who surround the throne have it

then in their power to aggrandize themselves by riveting the chains of

slavery. A stately grandeur is preserved, but it is only outward; all is

decayed within, and on the first storm the weak fabric falls to the

dust. Thus rose and thus fell the empire of Rome, and the much wider one

of Portugal. Though the increase of wealth did, indeed, contribute to

that corruption of manners which unnerved the Portuguese, certain it is

the wisdom of legislature might certainly have prevented every evil

which Spain and Portugal have experienced from their acquisitions in the

two Indies.[33] Every evil which they have suffered from their

acquirements arose, as shall be hereafter demonstrated, from their

general ignorance, which rendered them unable to investigate or

apprehend even the first principles of civil and commercial philosophy.

And what other than the total eclipse of their glory could be expected

from a nobility, rude and unlettered as those of Portugal are described

by the author of the Lusiad--a court and nobility who sealed the truth

of all his complaints against them by suffering that great man, the

light of their age, to die in an almshouse! What but the fall of their

state could be expected from barbarians like these! Nor can the annals

of mankind produce one instance of the fall of empire where the

character of the nobles was other than that ascribed to his countrymen

by Camoëns.

MICKLE'S SKETCH OF THE HISTORY

OF THE

DISCOVERY OF INDIA.

No lesson can be of greater national importance than the history of the

rise and the fall of a commercial empire. The view of what advantages

were acquired, and of what might have been still added; the means by

which such empire might have been continued, and the errors by which it

was lost, are as particularly conspicuous in the naval and commercial

history of Portugal as if Providence had intended to give a lasting

example to mankind; a chart, where the course of the safe voyage is

pointed out, and where the shelves and rocks, and the seasons of tempest

are discovered and foretold.

The history of Portugal, as a naval and commercial power, begins with

the designs of Prince Henry. But as the enterprises of this great man,

and the completion of his designs are intimately connected with the

state of Portugal, a short view of the progress of the power, and of the

character of that kingdom, will be necessary to elucidate the history of

the revival of commerce, and the subject of the Lusiad.

During the centuries when the effeminated Roman provinces of Europe were

desolated by the irruptions of the northern barbarians, the Saracens

spread the same horrors of brutal conquest over the finest countries of

the eastern world. The northern conquerors of the finer provinces of

Europe embraced the Christian religion as professed by the monks, and,

contented with the luxuries of their new settlements, their military

spirit soon declined. The Saracens, on the other hand, having embraced

the religion of Mohammed, their rage for war received every addition

which can possibly be inspired by religious enthusiasm. Not only the

spoils of the vanquished, but Paradise itself was to be obtained by

their sabres. Strengthened and inspired by a commission which they

esteemed divine, the rapidity of their conquests far exceeded those of

the Goths and Vandals. The majority of the inhabitants of every country

they subdued embraced their religion and imbibed their principles; thus,

the professors of Mohammedanism became the most formidable combination

ever leagued together against the rest of mankind. Morocco and the

adjacent countries had now received the doctrines of the Koran, and the

arms of the Saracens spread slaughter and desolation from the south of

Spain to Italy, and the islands of the Mediterranean. All the rapine and

carnage committed by the Gothic conquerors were now amply returned on

their less warlike posterity. In Spain, and the province now called

Portugal, the Mohammedans erected powerful kingdoms, and their lust of

conquest threatened destruction to every Christian power. But a romantic

military spirit revived in Europe under the auspices of Charlemagne. The

Mohammedans, during the reign of this sovereign, made a most formidable

irruption into Europe; France in particular felt the weight of their

fury. By the invention of new military honours that monarch drew the

adventurous youth of every Christian power to his standards, which

eventually resulted in the crusades, the beginning of which, in

propriety, should be dated from his reign. Few indeed are the historians

of this period, but enough remains to prove, that though the writers of

the old romance seized upon it, and added the inexhaustible machinery of

magic to the adventures of their heroes, yet the origin of their

fictions was founded on historical facts.[34] Yet, however this period

may thus resemble the fabulous ages of Greece, certain it is, that an

Orlando, a Rinaldo, a Rugero, and other celebrated names in romance,

acquired great honour in the wars which were waged against the

Saracens, the invaders of Europe. In these romantic wars, by which the

power of the Mohammedans was checked, several centuries elapsed, when

Alonzo, King of Castile, apprehensive that the whole force of the

Mohammedans of Spain and Morocco was ready to fall upon him, prudently

imitated the conduct of Charlemagne. He availed himself of the spirit of

chivalry, and demanded leave of Philip I. of France, and other princes,

that volunteers from their dominions might be allowed to distinguish

themselves, under his banners, against the Saracens. His desire was no

sooner known than a brave army of volunteers thronged to his standard,

and Alonzo was victorious. Honours and endowments were liberally

distributed among the champions; and to Henry, a younger son of the Duke

of Burgundy, he gave his daughter, Teresa, in marriage, with the

sovereignty of the countries south of Galicia as a dowry, commissioning

him to extend his dominions by the expulsion of the Moors. Henry, who

reigned by the title of Count, improved every advantage which offered.

The two rich provinces of Entro Minho e Douro, and Tras os Montes,

yielded to his arms; great part of Beira also was subdued, and the

Moorish King of Lamego became his tributary. Many thousands of

Christians, who had lived in miserable subjection to the Moors, took

shelter under the generous protection of Count Henry. Great numbers of

the Moors also changed their religion, and chose rather to continue in

the land where they were born than be exposed to the severities and

injustice of their native governors. And thus, one of the most

beautiful[35] and fertile spots of the world, with the finest climate,

in consequence of a crusade[36] against the Mohammedans, became in the

end the kingdom of Portugal, a sovereignty which in course of time

spread its influence far over the world.

Count Henry, after a successful reign, was succeeded by his infant son,

Don Alonzo-Henry, who, having surmounted the dangers which threatened

his youth, became the founder of the Portuguese monarchy. In 1139 the

Moors of Spain and Barbary united their forces to recover the dominions

from which they had been driven by the Christians. According to the

accounts of the Portuguese writers, the Moorish army amounted to near

400,000 men; nor is this number incredible when we consider what armies

they at other times have brought into the field, and that at this time

they came to take possession of lands from which they had been expelled.

Don Alonzo, however, with a very small army, gave them battle on the

plains of Ourique, and after a struggle of six hours, obtained a most

glorious and complete victory, and one which was crowned with an event

of the utmost importance. On the field of battle Don Alonzo was

proclaimed King of Portugal by his victorious soldiers, and he in return

conferred the rank of nobility on the whole army. The constitution of

the monarchy, however, was not settled, nor was Alonzo invested with the

regalia till six years after this memorable victory. The kind of

government the Portuguese had submitted to under the Spaniards and

Moors, and the advantages which they saw were derived from their own

valour, had taught them the love of liberty, while Alonzo himself

understood the spirit of his subjects too well to make the least attempt

to set himself up as a despotic monarch. After six years spent in

further victories, he called an assembly of the prelates, nobility, and

commons, to meet at Lamego. When the assembly opened, Alonzo appeared

seated on the throne, but without any other mark of regal dignity.

Before he was crowned, the constitution of the state was settled, and

eighteen statutes were solemnly confirmed by oath[37] as the charter of

king and people; statutes diametrically opposite to the divine right and

arbitrary power of kings, principles which inculcate and demand the

unlimited passive obedience of the subject.

The founders of the Portuguese monarchy transmitted to their heirs those

generous principles of liberty which complete and adorn the martial

character. The ardour of the volunteer, an ardour unknown to the slave

and the mercenary, added to the most romantic ideas of military glory,

characterized the Portuguese under the reigns of their first monarchs.

Engaged in almost continual war with the Moors, this spirit rose higher

and higher; and the desire to extirpate Mohammedanism--the principle

which animated the wish of victory in every battle--seemed to take

deeper root in every age. Such were the manners, and such the principles

of the people who were governed by the successors of Alonzo I.--a

succession of great men who proved themselves worthy to reign over so

military and enterprising a nation.

By a continued train of victories the Portuguese had the honour to drive

the Moors from Europe. The invasions of European soil by these people

were now requited by successful expeditions into Africa. Such was the

manly spirit of these ages, that the statutes of Lamego received

additional articles in favour of liberty, a convincing proof that the

general heroism of a people depends upon the principles of freedom.

Alonzo IV.,[38] though not an amiable character, was perhaps the

greatest warrior, politician, and monarch of his age. After a reign of

military splendour, he left his throne to his son Pedro, surnamed the

Just. Ideas of equity and literature were now diffused by this great

prince,[39] who was himself a polite scholar, and a most accomplished

gentleman. Portugal began to perceive the advantages of cultivated

talents, and to feel its superiority over the barbarous politics of the

ignorant Moors. The great Pedro, however, was succeeded by a weak

prince, and the heroic spirit of the Portuguese seemed to exist no more

under his son Fernando, surnamed the Careless.

Under John I.[40] all the virtues of the Portuguese again shone forth

with redoubled lustre. Happily for Portugal, his father had bestowed an

excellent education upon this prince, which, added to his great natural

talents, rendered him one of the greatest of monarchs. Conscious of the

superiority which his own liberal education gave him, he was assiduous

to bestow the same advantages upon his children, and he himself often

became their preceptor in science and useful knowledge. Fortunate in all

his affairs, he was most of all fortunate in his family. He had many

sons, and he lived to see them become men of parts and of action, whose

only emulation was to show affection to his person and to support his

administration by their great abilities.

All the sons of John excelled in military exercises, and in the

literature of their age; Don Edward and Don Pedro[41] were particularly

educated for the cabinet, and the mathematical genius of Don Henry

received every encouragement which a king and a father could give to

ripen it into perfection and public utility.

History was well known to Prince Henry, and his turn of mind peculiarly

enabled him to make political observations upon it. The history of

ancient Tyre and Carthage showed him what a maritime nation might hope

to become; and the flourishing colonies of the Greeks were the frequent

topic of his conversation. Where Grecian commerce extended its influence

the deserts became cultivated fields, cities rose, and men were drawn

from the woods and caverns to unite in society. The Romans, on the other

hand, when they destroyed Carthage, buried in her ruins the fountain of

civilization, improvement and opulence. They extinguished the spirit of

commerce, and the agriculture of the conquered nations. And thus, while

the luxury of Rome consumed the wealth of her provinces, her

uncommercial policy dried up the sources of its continuance. Nor were

the inestimable advantages of commerce the sole motives of Henry. All

the ardour that the love of his country could awaken conspired to

stimulate the natural turn of his genius for the improvement of

navigation.

As the kingdom of Portugal had been wrested from the Moors, and

established by conquest, so its existence still depended on the

superiority of force of arms; and even before the birth of Henry, the

superiority of the Portuguese navies had been of the utmost consequence

to the protection of the state. Whatever, therefore, might curb the

power of the Moors, was of the utmost importance to the existence of

Portugal. Such were the views and circumstances which united to inspire

the designs of Henry, designs which were powerfully enforced by the

religion of that prince. Desire to extirpate Mohammedanism was

synonymous with patriotism in Portugal. It was the principle which gave

birth to, and supported their monarchy. Their kings avowed it; and

Prince Henry always professed, that to propagate the Gospel and

extirpate Mohammedanism, was the great purpose of all his enterprises.

The same principles, it is certain, inspired King Emmanuel, under whom

the eastern world was discovered by Gama.[42]

The crusades, which had rendered the greatest political service to Spain

and Portugal, had begun now to have some effect upon the commerce of

Europe. The Hanse Towns had received charters of liberty, and had united

together for the protection of their trade against the pirates of the

Baltic. The Lombards had opened a lucrative traffic with the ports of

Egypt, from whence they imported into Europe the riches of India; and

Bruges, the mart between them and the Hanse Towns, was, in consequence,

surrounded with the best agriculture of these ages,[43] a certain proof

of the dependence of agriculture upon the extent of commerce. The Hanse

Towns were liable, however, to be buried in the victories of a tyrant,

and the trade with Egypt was exceedingly insecure and precarious. Europe

was still enveloped in the dark mists of ignorance; commerce still

crept, in an infant state, along the coasts, nor were the ships adapted

for long voyages. A successful tyrant might have overwhelmed the system

of commerce entirely, for it stood on a much narrower basis than in the

days of Phoenician and Greek colonization. A broader and more permanent

foundation of commerce than the world had yet seen was wanting to bless

mankind, and Henry, Duke of Viseo, was born to give it.

In order to promote his designs, Prince Henry was appointed

Commander-in-chief of the Portuguese forces in Africa. He had already,

in 1412, three years before the reduction of Ceuta,[44] sent a ship to

make discoveries on the Barbary coast. Cape Nam[45] (as its name

implies) was then the _ne plus ultra_ of European navigation; the ship

sent by Henry, however, passed it sixty leagues, and reached Cape

Bojador. About a league and a half from Cape St. Vincent (supposed to be

the Promontorium Sacrum of the Romans), Prince Henry built his town of

Sagrez, the best planned and fortified town in Portugal. Here, where the

view of the ocean inspired his hopes, he erected his arsenals, and built

and harboured his ships. And here, leaving the temporary bustle and

cares of the State to his father and brothers, he retired like a

philosopher from the world in order to promote its happiness. Having

received all the information he could obtain in Africa, he continued

unwearied in his mathematical and geographical studies; the art of

ship-building received amazing improvement under his direction, and the

correctness of his ideas of the structure of the globe is now confirmed.

He it was who first suggested the use of the mariner's compass, and of

longitude and latitude in navigation, and demonstrated how these might

be ascertained by astronomical observations. Naval adventurers were now

invited from all parts to the town of Sagrez, and in 1418 Juan Gonsalez

Zarco and Tristran Vaz set sail on an expedition of discovery, the

circumstances of which give us a striking picture of the state of

navigation ere it was remodelled by the genius of Henry.

Cape Bojador, so named from its extent,[46] runs about forty leagues to

the westward, and for about six leagues off land there is a most violent

current, which, dashing upon the shallows, makes a tempestuous sea. This

was deemed impassable, for it had not occurred to any one that by

standing out to sea the current might be avoided. To pass this

formidable Cape was the commission of Zarco and Vaz, who were also

ordered to survey the African coast, which, according to the information

given to Henry by the Moors, extended to the Equator. Zarco and Vaz,

however, lost their course in a storm, and were driven to a small

island, which, in the joy of their deliverance, they named Puerto Santo,

or the Holy Haven. Nor was Prince Henry less joyful of their discovery

than they had been of their escape: sufficient proof of the miserable

state of navigation in those days; for this island is only a few days'

voyage from Sagrez.

The discoverers of Puerto Santo, accompanied by Bartholomew Perestrello,

were, with three ships, sent out on farther trial. Perestrello, having

sown some seeds and left some cattle at Puerto Santo, returned to

Portugal.[47] Zarco and Vaz directing their course southward, in 1419,

perceived something like a cloud on the water, and sailing towards it,

discovered an island covered with woods, which from this circumstance

they named Madeira.[48] And this rich and beautiful island was the first

reward of the enterprises of Prince Henry.

Nature calls upon Portugal to be a maritime power, and her naval

superiority over the Moors, was, in the time of Henry, the surest

defence of her existence as a kingdom. Yet, though all his labours

tended to establish that naval superiority on the surest basis, though

even the religion of the age added its authority to the clearest

political principles in favour of Henry, yet were his enterprises and

his expected discoveries derided with all the insolence of ignorance,

and the bitterness of popular clamour. Barren deserts like Lybia, it was

said, were all that could be found, and a thousand disadvantages, drawn

from these data, were foreseen and foretold. The great mind and better

knowledge of Henry, however, were not thus to be shaken. Twelve years

had elapsed since the discovery of Madeira in unsuccessful endeavours to

carry navigation farther. At length, one of his captains, named

Galianez, in 1434 passed the Cape of Bojador, till then invincible; an

action, says Faria, not inferior to the labours of Hercules.

Galianez, the next year, accompanied by Gonsalez Baldaya, carried his

discoveries many leagues farther. Having put two horsemen on shore to

discover the face of the country, the adventurers, after riding several

hours, saw nineteen men armed with javelins. The natives fled, and the

two horsemen pursued, till one of the Portuguese, being wounded, lost

the first blood that was sacrificed to the new system of commerce. A

small beginning, it soon swelled into oceans, and deluged the eastern

and western worlds. The cruelties of Hernando Cortez, and that more

horrid barbarian, Pizarro,[49] are no more to be charged upon Don Henry

and Columbus, than the villainies of the Jesuits and the horrors of the

Inquisition are to be ascribed to Him who commands us to do to our

neighbour as we would wish our neighbour to do to us. But, if it be

maintained that he who plans a discovery ought to foresee the miseries

which the vicious will engraft upon his enterprise, let the objector be

told that the miseries are uncertain, while the advantages are real and

sure.

In 1440 Anthony Gonsalez brought some Moors prisoners to Lisbon. These

he took two and forty leagues beyond Cape Bojador, and in 1442 he

returned with his captives. One Moor escaped, but ten blacks of Guinea

and a considerable quantity of gold dust were given in ransom for two

others. A rivulet at the place of landing was named by Gonsalez, Rio del

Oro, or the River of Gold. And the islands of Adeget, Arguim, and De las

Garças were now discovered.

The negroes of Guinea, the first ever seen in Portugal, and the gold

dust, excited other passions beside admiration. A company was formed at

Lagos, under the auspices of Prince Henry, to carry on a traffic with

the newly discovered countries; and, as the Portuguese considered

themselves in a state of continual hostility with the Moors, about two

hundred of these people, inhabitants of the Islands of Nar and Tider, in

1444, were brought prisoners to Portugal. Next year Gonzalo de Cintra

was attacked by the Moors, fourteen leagues beyond Rio del Oro, where,

with seven of his men, he was killed.

This hostile proceeding displeased Prince Henry, and in 1446 Anthony

Gonsalez and two other captains were sent to enter into a treaty of

peace and traffic with the natives of Rio del Oro, and also to attempt

their conversion. But these proposals were rejected by the barbarians,

one of whom, however, came voluntarily to Portugal, and Juan Fernandez

remained with the natives, to observe their manners and the products of

the country.

In 1447 upwards of thirty ships followed the route of traffic which was

now opened; and John de Castilla obtained the infamy to stand the first

on the list of those names whose villainies have disgraced the spirit of

commerce, and afforded the loudest complaints against the progress of

navigation. Dissatisfied with the value of his cargo, he seized twenty

of the natives of Gomera (one of the Canaries), who had assisted him,

and with whom he was in friendly alliance, and brought them as slaves to

Portugal. But Prince Henry resented this outrage, and having given them

some valuable presents of clothes, restored the captives to freedom and

their native country.

The reduction of the Canaries was also this year attempted; but Spain

having challenged the discovery of these islands, the expedition was

discontinued. In the Canary Islands a singular feudal custom existed;

giving to the chief man, or governor, a temporary right to the person of

every bride in his district.

In 1448 Fernando Alonzo was sent ambassador to the king of Cape Verde

with a treaty of trade and conversion, which was defeated at that time

by the treachery of the natives. In 1449 the Azores were discovered by

Gonsalo Vello; and the coast sixty leagues beyond Cape Verde was visited

by the fleets of Henry. It is also certain that some of his commanders

passed the equinoctial line.

Prince Henry had now, with inflexible perseverance, prosecuted his

discoveries for upwards of forty years. His father, John I., concurred

with him in his views, and gave him every assistance; his brother, King

Edward, during his short reign, took the same interest in his

expeditions as his father had done; nor was the eleven years' regency

of his brother Don Pedro less auspicious to him.[50] But the

misunderstanding between Pedro and his nephew Alonzo V., who took upon

him the reins of government in his seventeenth year, retarded the

designs of Henry, and gave him much unhappiness.[51] At his town of

Sagrez, from whence he had not moved for many years, Don Henry, now in

his sixty-seventh year, yielded to the stroke of fate, in the year of

our Lord 1463, gratified with the certain prospect that the route to the

eastern world would one day crown the enterprises to which he had given

birth. He saw with pleasure the naval superiority of his country over

the Moors established on the must solid basis, its trade greatly upon

the increase, and flattered himself that he had given a mortal wound to

Mohammedanism. To him, as to their primary author, are due all the

inestimable advantages which ever have flowed, or ever will flow from

the discovery of the greatest part of Africa, and of the East and West

Indies. Every improvement in the state and manners of these countries,

or whatever country may be yet discovered, is strictly due to him. What

is an Alexander, crowned with trophies at the head of his army, compared

with a Henry contemplating the ocean from his window on the rock of

Sagrez! The one suggests the idea of a destroying demon, the other of a

benevolent Deity.

From 1448, when Alonzo V. assumed the power of government, till the end

of his reign in 1471, little progress was made in maritime affairs. Cape

Catherine alone was added to the former discoveries. But under his son,

John II., the designs of Prince Henry were prosecuted with renewed

vigour. In 1481 the Portuguese built a fort on the Gold Coast, and the

King of Portugal took the title of Lord of Guinea. Bartholomew Diaz, in

1486, reached the river which he named _dell'Infante_ on the eastern

side of Africa, but deterred by the storms of that coast from proceeding

farther, on his return he had the happiness to be the discoverer of the

promontory, unknown for many ages, which bounds the south of Africa.

From the storms he there encountered he named it Cape of Storms; but

John, elated with the promise of India, which this discovery, as he

justly deemed, included, gave it the name of the Cape of Good Hope. The

arts and valour of the Portuguese had now made a great impression on the

minds of the Africans. The King of Congo sent the sons of some of his

principal officers to Lisbon, to be instructed in arts and religion; and

ambassadors from the King of Benin requested teachers to be sent to his

kingdom. On the return of his subjects, the King and Queen of Congo,

with 100,000 of their people, were baptized. An ambassador also arrived

from the Christian Emperor of Abyssinia, and Pedro de Covillam and

Alonzo de Payva were sent by land to penetrate into the East, that they

might acquire whatever intelligence might facilitate the desired

navigation to India. Covillam and Payva parted at Toro in Arabia, and

took different routes. The former having visited Conanor, Calicut, and

Goa in India, returned to Cairo, where he heard of the death of his

companion. Here also he met the Rabbi Abraham of Beja, who was employed

for the same purpose by King John. Covillam sent the Rabbi home with an

account of what countries he had seen, and he himself proceeded to Ormuz

and Ethiopia, but, as Camoëns expresses it--

"To _his_ native shore,

Enrich'd with knowledge, _he_ return'd no more."

Men, whose genius led them to maritime affairs began now to be possessed

by an ardent ambition to distinguish themselves; and the famous Columbus

offered his service to King John, and was rejected. Every one knows the

discoveries of this great adventurer, but his history is generally

misunderstood.[52] The simple truth is, Columbus, who acquired his

skill in navigation among the Portuguese, could be no stranger to the

design, long meditated in that kingdom, of discovering a naval route to

India, which, according to ancient geographers and the opinion of that

age, was supposed to be the next land to the west of Spain. And that

India and the adjacent islands were the regions sought by Columbus is

also certain. John, who esteemed the route to India as almost

discovered, and in the power of his own subjects, rejected the proposals

of the foreigner. But Columbus met a more favourable reception from

Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and queen of Castile. Columbus,

therefore, proposed, as Magalhaens afterwards did, for the same reason,

to steer a westward course, and having in 1492 discovered some western

islands, in 1493, on his return to Spain, he put into the Tagus with

great tokens of the riches of his discovery. Some of the Portuguese

courtiers (the same ungenerous minds, perhaps, who advised the rejection

of Columbus because he was a foreigner) proposed the assassination of

that great man, thereby to conceal from Spain the advantages of his

navigation. But John, though Columbus rather roughly upbraided him,

looked upon him now with a generous regret, and dismissed him with

honour. The King of Portugal, however, alarmed lest the discoveries of

Columbus should interfere with those of his crown, gave orders to equip

a war-fleet to protect his rights. But matters were adjusted by

embassies, and that celebrated treaty was drawn up by which Spain and

Portugal divided the western and eastern worlds between them. The

eastern half of the world was allotted for the Portuguese, and the

western for the Spanish navigation. A Papal Bull also, which, for

obvious reasons, prohibited the propagation of the gospel in these

bounds by the subjects of any other state, confirmed this amicable and

extraordinary treaty.

Soon after this, however, while the thoughts of King John were intent on

the discovery of India, his preparations were interrupted by his death.

But his earnest desires and great designs were inherited, together with

his crown, by his cousin Emmanuel; and in 1497 (the year before Columbus

made the voyage in which he discovered the mouth of the river Oronoko),

Vasco de Gama sailed from the Tagus for the discovery of India.

Of this voyage, the subject of the Lusiad, many particulars are

necessarily mentioned in the notes; we shall therefore only allude to

these, but be more explicit on the others, which are omitted by Camoëns

in obedience to the rules of epic poetry.

Notwithstanding the popular clamour against the undertaking, Emmanuel

was determined to prosecute the views of Prince Henry and John II. Three

sloops of war and a store ship, manned with only 160 men, were fitted

out; for hostility was not the purpose of this expedition. Vasco de

Gama, a gentleman of good family, who, in a war with the French, had

given signal proofs of his naval skill, was commissioned admiral and

general, and his brother Paul, with his friend Nicholas Coello, were

appointed to command under him. It is the greatest honour of kings to

distinguish the characters of their officers, and to employ them

accordingly. Emmanuel in many instances was happy in this talent,

particularly in the choice of his admiral for the discovery of India.

All the enthusiasm of desire to accomplish his end, joined with the

greatest heroism, the quickest penetration, and coolest prudence, united

to form the character of Gama. On his appointment he confessed to the

king that his mind had long aspired to this expedition. The king

expressed great confidence in his prudence and honour, and gave him,

with his own hand, the colours which he was to carry. On this banner,

which bore the cross of the military Order of Christ, Gama, with great

enthusiasm, took the oath of fidelity.

About four miles from Lisbon is a chapel on the sea side. To this, the

day before their departure, Gama conducted the companions of his

expedition. He was to encounter an ocean untried, and dreaded as

unnavigable, and he knew the power of religion on minds which are not

inclined to dispute its authority. The whole night was spent in the

chapel in prayers for success, and in the rites of their devotion. The

next day, when the adventurers marched to the fleet, the shore of

Belem[53] presented one of the most solemn and affecting scenes perhaps

recorded in history. The beach was covered with the inhabitants of

Lisbon. A procession of priests, in their robes, sang anthems and

offered up invocations to heaven. Every one looked on the adventurers as

brave men going to a dreadful execution; as rushing upon certain death;

and the vast multitude caught the fire of devotion, and joined aloud in

prayers for their success. The relations, friends, and acquaintances of

the voyagers wept; all were affected; the sight was general; Gama

himself shed manly tears on parting with his friends, but he hurried

over the tender scene, and hastened on board with all the alacrity of

hope. He set sail immediately, and so much affected were the thousands

who beheld his departure, that they remained immovable on the shore,

till the fleet, under full sail, vanished from their sight.

It was on the 8th of July when Gama left the Tagus. The flag ship was

commanded by himself, the second by his brother, the third by Coello,

and the store ship by Gonsalo Nunio. Several interpreters, skilled in

Arabic, and other oriental languages, went along with them. Ten

malefactors (men of abilities, whose sentences of death were reversed,

on condition of their obedience to Gama in whatever embassies or dangers

among the barbarians he might think proper to employ them), were also on

board. The fleet, favoured by the weather, passed the Canary and Cape de

Verde islands, but had now to encounter other fortune. Sometimes stopped

by dead calms, but for the most part tossed by tempests, which increased

in violence as they proceeded to the south. Thus driven far to sea they

laboured through that wide ocean which surrounds St. Helena, in seas,

says Faria, unknown to the Portuguese discoverers, none of whom had

sailed so far to the west. From the 28th of July, the day they passed

the isle of St. James, they had seen no shore, and now on November the

4th they were happily relieved by the sight of land. The fleet anchored

in the large bay,[54] and Coello was sent in search of a river where

they might take in wood and fresh water. Having found one, the fleet

made towards it, and Gama, whose orders were to acquaint himself with

the manners of the people wherever he touched, ordered a party of his

men to bring him some of the natives by force, or stratagem. One they

caught as he was gathering honey on the side of a mountain, and brought

him to the fleet. He expressed the greatest indifference about the gold

and fine clothes which they showed him, but was greatly delighted with

some glasses and little brass bells. These with great joy he accepted,

and was set on shore; and soon after many of the blacks came for, and

were gratified with, the like trifles; in return for which they gave

plenty of their best provisions. None of Gama's interpreters, however,

could understand a word of their language, or obtain any information of

India. The friendly intercourse between the fleet and the natives was,

however, soon interrupted by the imprudence of Veloso, a young

Portuguese, which occasioned a skirmish wherein Gama's life was

endangered. Gama and some others were on shore taking the altitude of

the sun, when in consequence of Veloso's rashness they were attacked by

the blacks with great fury. Gama defended himself with an oar, and

received a dart in his foot. Several others were likewise wounded, and

they found safety in retreat. A discharge of cannon from the ships

facilitated their escape, and Gama, esteeming it imprudent to waste his

strength in attempts entirely foreign to the design of his voyage,

weighed anchor, and steered in search of the extremity of Africa.

In this part of the voyage, says Osorius, "The heroism of Gama was

greatly displayed." The waves swelled up like mountains, the ships

seemed at one time heaved up to the clouds, and at another precipitated

to the bed of the ocean. The winds were piercing cold, and so boisterous

that the pilot's voice could seldom be heard, and a dismal darkness,

which at that tempestuous season involves these seas, added all its

horrors. Sometimes the storm drove them southward, at other times they

were obliged to stand on the tack and yield to its fury, preserving what

they had gained with the greatest difficulty.

"With such mad seas the daring Gama fought

For many a day, and many a dreadful night,

Incessant labouring round the stormy Cape,

By bold ambition led."

THOMSON.

During any interval of the storm, the sailors, wearied out with fatigue,

and abandoned to despair, surrounded Gama, and implored him not to

suffer himself, and those committed to his care, to perish by so

dreadful a death. The impossibility that men so weakened could endure

much longer, and the opinion that this ocean was torn by eternal

tempest, and therefore had hitherto been, and was impassable, were

urged. But Gama's resolution to proceed was unalterable.[55] A

conspiracy was then formed against his life. But his brother discovered

it, and the courage and prudence of Gama defeated its design. He put the

chief conspirators and all the pilots in irons, and he himself, his

brother, Coello, and some others, stood night and day at the helm and

directed the course. At last, after having many days, with unconquered

mind, withstood the tempest and mutiny (_molem perfidiæ_) the storm

suddenly ceased, and they beheld the Cape of Good Hope.

On November the 20th all the fleet doubled that promontory, and steering

northward, coasted along a rich and beautiful shore, adorned with large

forests and numberless herds of cattle. All was now alacrity; the hope

that they had surmounted every danger revived their spirits, and the

admiral was beloved and admired. Here, and at the bay, which they named

St. Blas, they took in provisions, and beheld these beautiful rural

scenes, described by Camoëns. And here the store sloop was burnt by

order of the admiral. On December the 8th a violent tempest drove the

fleet out of sight of land, and carried them to that dreadful current

which made the Moors deem it impossible to double the Cape. Gama,

however, though unlucky in the time of navigating these seas, was safely

carried over the current by the violence of a tempest; and having

recovered the sight of land, as his safest course he steered northward

along the coast. On the 10th of January they discovered, about 230 miles

from their last watering place, some beautiful islands, with herds of

cattle frisking in the meadows. It was a profound calm, and Gama stood

near to land. The natives were better dressed and more civilized than

those they had hitherto seen. An exchange of presents was made, and the

black king was so pleased with the politeness of Gama, that he came

aboard his ship to see him. At this place, which he named Terra de

Natal, Gama left two of the malefactors before mentioned to procure what

information they could against his return. On the 15th of January, in

the dusk of the evening, they came to the mouth of a large river, whose

banks were shaded with trees laden with fruit. On the return of day they

saw several little boats with palm-tree leaves making towards them, and

the natives came aboard without hesitation or fear. Gama received them

kindly, gave them an entertainment, and some silken garments, which they

received with visible joy. Only one of them, however, could speak a

little broken Arabic. From him Fernan Martinho learned that not far

distant was a country where ships, in shape and size like Gama's,

frequently resorted. This gave the fleet great encouragement, and the

admiral named this place "The River of Good Signs."

Here, while Gama refitted his ships, the crews were attacked with a

violent scurvy, which carried off several of his men. Having taken in

fresh provisions, on the 24th of February he set sail, and on the 1st of

March they descried four islands on the coast of Mozambique. From one of

these they perceived seven vessels in full sail bearing to the fleet.

The Râis, or captain, knew Gama's ship by the admiral's ensign, and made

up to her, saluting her with loud huzzas and instruments of music. Gama

received them aboard, and entertained them with great kindness. The

interpreters talked with them in Arabic. The island, in which was the

principal harbour and trading town, they said, was governed by a deputy

of the King of Quiloa; and many Arab merchants, they added, were settled

here, who traded with Arabia, India, and other parts of the world. Gama

was overjoyed, and the crew, with uplifted hands, returned thanks to

Heaven.

Pleased with the presents which Gama sent him, and imagining that the

Portuguese were Mohammedans from Morocco, the governor, dressed in rich

embroidery, came to congratulate the admiral on his arrival in the east.

As he approached the fleet in great pomp, Gama removed the sick out of

sight, and ordered all those in health to attend above deck, armed in

the Portuguese manner; for he foresaw what would happen when the

Mohammedans should discover it was a Christian fleet. During the

entertainment provided for him Zacocia seemed highly pleased, and asked

several questions about the arms and religion of the strangers. Gama

showed him his arms, and explained the force of his cannon, but he did

not affect to know much about religion; however he frankly promised to

show him his books of devotion whenever a few days refreshment should

give him a more convenient time. In the meanwhile he entreated Zacocia

to send him some pilots who might conduct him to India. Two pilots were

next day brought by the governor, a treaty of peace was solemnly

concluded, and every office of mutual friendship seemed to promise a

lasting harmony. But it was soon interrupted. Zacocia, as soon as he

found the Portuguese were Christians, used every endeavour to destroy

the fleet. The life of Gama was attempted. One of the Moorish pilots

deserted, and some of the Portuguese who were on shore to get fresh

water were attacked by the natives, but were rescued by a timely

assistance from the ships.

Besides the hatred of the Christian name, inspired by their religion,

the Arabs had other reasons to wish the destruction of Gama. Before this

period, they were almost the only merchants of the East; they had

colonies in every place convenient for trade, and were the sole masters

of the Ethiopian, Arabian, and Indian seas. They clearly foresaw the

consequences of the arrival of Europeans, and every art was soon exerted

to prevent such formidable rivals from effecting any footing in the

East. To these Mohammedan traders the Portuguese gave the name of Moors.

Immediately after the skirmish at the watering-place, Gama, having one

Moorish pilot, set sail, but was soon driven back by tempestuous

weather. He now resolved to take in fresh water by force. The Moors

perceiving his intention, about two thousand of them rising from ambush,

attacked the Portuguese detachment. But the prudence of Gama had not

been asleep. His ships were stationed with art, and his artillery not

only dispersed the hostile Moors, but reduced their town, which was

built of wood, into a heap of ashes. Among some prisoners taken by

Paulus de Gama was a pilot, and Zacocia begging forgiveness for his

treachery, sent another, whose skill in navigation he greatly commended.

A war with the Moors was now begun. Gama perceived that their jealousy

of European rivals gave him nothing to expect but open hostility and

secret treachery; and he knew what numerous colonies they had on every

trading coast of the East. To impress them, therefore, with the terror

of his arms on their first act of treachery, was worthy of a great

commander. Nor was he remiss in his attention to the chief pilot who had

been last sent. He perceived in him a kind of anxious endeavour to bear

near some little islands, and suspecting there were unseen rocks in that

course, he confidently charged the pilot with guilt, and ordered him to

be severely whipped. The punishment produced a confession and promises

of fidelity. And he now advised Gama to stand for Quiloa, which he

assured him was inhabited by Christians. Three Ethiopian Christians had

come aboard the fleet while at Zacocia's island, and the opinions then

current about Prester John's country inclined Gama to try if he could

find a port where he might obtain the assistance of a people of his own

religion. A violent storm, however, drove the fleet from Quiloa, and

being now near Mombas, the pilot advised him to enter that harbour,

where, he said, there were also many Christians.

The city of Mombas is agreeably situated on an island, formed by a river

which empties itself into the sea by two mouths. The buildings are lofty

and of solid stone, and the country abounds with fruit-trees and cattle.

Gama, happy to find a harbour where everything wore the appearance of

civilization, ordered the fleet to cast anchor, which was scarcely done,

when a galley, in which were 100 men in oriental costume, armed with

bucklers and sabres, rowed up to the flag ship. All of these seemed

desirous to come on board, but only four, who by their dress seemed

officers, were admitted; nor were these allowed, till stripped of their

arms. When on board they extolled the prudence of Gama in refusing

admittance to armed strangers; and by their behaviour, seemed desirous

to gain the good opinion of the fleet. Their country, they boasted,

contained all the riches of India; and their king, they professed, was

ambitious of entering into a friendly treaty with the Portuguese, with

whose renown he was well acquainted. And, that a conference with his

majesty and the offices of friendship might be rendered more convenient,

Gama was requested to enter the harbour. As no place could be more

commodious for the recovery of the sick, Gama resolved to enter the

port; and in the meanwhile sent two of the pardoned criminals as an

embassy to the king. These the king treated with the greatest kindness,

ordered his officers to show them the strength and opulence of his city;

and, on their return to the navy, he sent a present to Gama of the most

valuable spices, of which he boasted such abundance, that the

Portuguese, he said, if they regarded their own interest, would seek for

no other India.

To make treaties of commerce was the business of Gama; and one so

advantageous was not to be refused. Fully satisfied by the report of his

spies, he ordered to weigh anchor and enter the harbour. His own ship

led the way, when a sudden violence of the tide made Gama apprehensive

of running aground. He therefore ordered the sails to be furled, and the

anchors to be dropped, and gave a signal for the rest of the fleet to

follow his example. This manoeuvre, and the cries of the sailors in

executing it, alarmed the Mozambique pilots. Conscious of their

treachery, they thought their design was discovered, and leaped into the

sea. Some boats of Mombas took them up, and refusing to put them on

board, set them safely on shore, though the admiral repeatedly demanded

the restoration of the pilots. These proofs of treachery were farther

confirmed by the behaviour of the King of Mombas. In the middle of the

night Gama thought he heard some noise, and on examination, found his

fleet surrounded by a great number of Moors, who, with the utmost

secrecy, endeavoured to cut his cables. But their scheme was defeated;

and some Arabs, who remained on board, confessed that no Christians were

resident either at Quiloa or Mombas. The storm which drove them from the

one place, and their late escape at the other, were now beheld as

manifestations of the Divine favour, and Gama, holding up his hands to

heaven, ascribed his safety to the care of Providence.[56] Two days,

however, elapsed before they could get clear of the rocky bay of Mombas.

Having now ventured to hoist their sails, they steered for Melinda, a

port, they had been told, where many merchants from India resorted. In

their way thither they took a Moorish vessel, out of which Gama selected

fourteen prisoners, one of whom he perceived by his mien to be a person

of distinction. By this Saracen, Gama was informed that he was near

Melinda, that the king was hospitable, and celebrated for his faith, and

that four ships from India, commanded by Christian masters, were in that

harbour. The Saracen also offered to go as Gama's messenger to the king,

and promised to procure him an able pilot to conduct him to Calicut, the

chief port of India.

As the coast of Melinda appeared to be dangerous, Gama anchored at some

distance from the city, and, unwilling to risk the safety of any of his

men, he landed the Saracen on an island opposite to Melinda. This was

observed, and the stranger was brought before the king, to whom he gave

so favourable an account of the politeness and humanity of Gama, that a

present of several sheep, and fruits of all sorts, was sent by his

majesty to the admiral, who had the happiness to find the truth of what

his prisoner had told him confirmed by the masters of the four ships

from India. These were Christians from Cambaya. They were transported

with joy on the arrival of the Portuguese, and gave several useful

instructions to the admiral.

The city of Melinda was situated in a fertile plain, surrounded with

gardens and groves of orange-trees, whose flowers diffused a most

grateful odour. The pastures were covered with herds; and the houses,

built of square stones, were both elegant and magnificent. Desirous to

make an alliance with such a state, Gama requited the civility of the

king with great generosity. He drew nearer the shore, and urged his

instructions as apology for not landing to wait upon his majesty in

person. The apology was accepted, and the king, whose age and infirmity

prevented him going on board, sent his son to congratulate Gama, and

enter into a treaty of friendship. The prince, who had some time

governed under the direction of his father, came in great pomp. His

dress was royally magnificent, the nobles who attended him displayed all

the riches of silk and embroidery, and the music of Melinda resounded

all over the bay. Gama, to express his regard, met him in the admiral's

barge. The prince, as soon as he came up, leaped into it, and

distinguishing the admiral by his habit, embraced him with all the

intimacy of old friendship. In their conversation, which was long and

sprightly, he discovered nothing of the barbarian, says Osorius, but in

everything showed an intelligence and politeness worthy of his high

rank. He accepted the fourteen Moors, whom Gama gave to him, with great

pleasure. He seemed to view Gama with enthusiasm, and confessed that

the build of the Portuguese ships, so much superior to what he had seen,

convinced him of the greatness of that people. He gave Gama an able

pilot, named Melemo Cana, to conduct him to Calicut; and requested, that

on his return to Europe, he would carry an ambassador with him to the

court of Lisbon. During the few days the fleet stayed at Melinda, the

mutual friendship increased, and a treaty of alliance was concluded. And

now, on April 22, resigning the helm to his skilful and honest pilot,

Gama hoisted sail and steered to the north. In a few days they passed

the line, and the Portuguese with ecstasy beheld the appearance of their

native sky. Orion, Ursa Major and Minor, and the other stars about the

north pole, were now a more joyful discovery than the south pole had

formerly been to them.[57] The pilot now stood out to the east, through

the Indian ocean; and after sailing about three weeks, he had the

happiness to congratulate Gama on the view of the mountains of Calicut,

who, transported with ecstasy, returned thanks to Heaven, and ordered

all his prisoners to be set at liberty.

About two leagues from Calicut, Gama ordered the fleet to anchor, and

was soon surrounded by a number of boats. By one of these he sent one of

the pardoned criminals to the city. The appearance of an unknown fleet

on their coast brought immense crowds around the stranger, who no sooner

entered Calicut, than he was lifted from his feet and carried hither and

thither by the concourse. Though the populace and the stranger were

alike earnest to be understood, their language was unintelligible to

each other, till, happily for Gama, a Moorish merchant accosted his

messenger in the Spanish tongue. The next day this Moor, who was named

Monzaida, waited upon Gama on board his ship. He was a native of Tunis,

and the chief person, he said, with whom John II. had at that port

contracted for military stores. He was a man of abilities and great

intelligence of the world, and an admirer of the Portuguese valour and

honour. The engaging behaviour of Gama heightened his esteem into the

sincerest attachment. Monzaida offered to be interpreter for the

admiral, and to serve him in whatever besides he might possibly befriend

him. And thus, by one of those unforeseen circumstances which often

decide the greatest events, Gama obtained a friend who soon rendered him

the most important services.

At the first interview, Monzaida gave Gama the fullest information of

the climate, extent, customs, religion, and riches of India, the

commerce of the Arabs, and the character of the sovereign. Calicut was

not only the imperial city, but the greatest port. The king, or

zamorim,[58] who resided here, was acknowledged as emperor by the

neighbouring princes; and, as his revenue consisted chiefly of duties on

merchandise, he had always encouraged the resort of foreigners to his

ports.

Pleased with this promising prospect, Gama sent two of his officers with

Monzaida to wait upon the zamorim at his palace, at Pandarene, a few

miles from the city. They were admitted to the royal apartment, and

delivered their embassy; to which the zamorim replied, that the arrival

of the admiral of so great a prince as Emmanuel, gave him inexpressible

pleasure, and that he would willingly embrace the offered alliance. In

the meanwhile, as their present station was extremely dangerous, he

advised them to bring the ships nearer to Pandarene, and for this

purpose he sent a pilot to the fleet.

A few days after this, the zamorim sent his first minister, or

catual,[59] attended by several of the nayres, or nobility, to conduct

Gama to the royal palace. As an interview with the zamorim was

absolutely necessary to complete the purpose of his voyage, Gama

immediately agreed to it, though the treachery he had already

experienced since his arrival in the eastern seas showed him the

personal danger which he thus hazarded. He gave his brother, Paulus, and

Coello the command of the fleet in his absence.

The revenue of the zamorim arose chiefly from the traffic of the Moors;

the various colonies of these people were combined in one interest, and

the jealousy and consternation which his arrival in the eastern seas had

spread among them, were circumstances well known to Gama: and he knew,

also, what he had to expect, both from their force and their fraud. But

duty and honour required him to complete the purpose of his voyage. He

left peremptory command, that if he was detained a prisoner, or any

attempt made upon his life, they should take no step to save him or to

reverse his fate; to give ear to no message which might come in his name

for such purpose, and to enter into no negotiation on his behalf. They

were to keep some boats near the shore, to favour his escape if he

perceived treachery before being detained by force; yet the moment that

force rendered his escape impracticable they were to set sail, and carry

the tidings to the king. As this was his only concern, he would suffer

no risk that might lose a man, or endanger the homeward voyage. Having

left these orders, he went ashore with the catual, attended only by

twelve of his own men, for he would not weaken his fleet, though he knew

the pomp of attendance would in one respect have been greatly in his

favour at the first court of India.

As soon as landed, he and the catual were carried in great pomp, in

palanquins, upon men's shoulders, to the chief temple, and thence, amid

immense crowds, to the royal palace. The apartment and dress of the

zamorim were such as might be expected from the luxury and wealth of

India. The emperor reclined on a magnificent couch, surrounded with his

nobility and officers of state. Gama was introduced to him by a

venerable old man, the chief brahmin. His majesty, by a gentle nod,

appointed the admiral to sit on one of the steps of his sofa, and then

demanded his embassy. It was against the custom of his country, Gama

replied, to deliver his instructions in a public assembly; he therefore

desired that the king and a few of his ministers would grant him a

private audience. This was complied with, and Gama, in a manly speech,

set forth the greatness of his sovereign Emmanuel, the fame he had heard

of the zamorim, and the desire he had to enter into an alliance with so

great a prince; nor were the mutual advantages of such a treaty omitted

by the admiral. The zamorim, in reply, professed great esteem for the

friendship of the King of Portugal, and declared his readiness to enter

into a friendly alliance. He then ordered the catual to provide proper

apartments for Gama in his own house; and having promised another

conference, he dismissed the admiral with all the appearance of

sincerity.

The character of this monarch is strongly marked in the history of

Portuguese Asia. Avarice was his ruling passion; he was haughty or mean,

bold or timorous, as his interest rose or fell in the balance of his

judgment; wavering and irresolute whenever the scales seemed doubtful

which to preponderate. He was pleased with the prospect of bringing the

commerce of Europe to his harbours, but he was also influenced by the

threats of the Moors.

Three days elapsed ere Gama was again permitted to see the zamorim. At

this second audience he presented the letter and presents of Emmanuel.

The letter was received with politeness, but the presents were viewed

with an eye of contempt. Gama noticed it, and said he only came to

discover the route to India, and therefore was not charged with valuable

gifts, before the friendship of the state, where they might choose to

traffic, was known. Yet, indeed, he brought the most valuable of all

gifts, the offer of the friendship of his sovereign, and the commerce of

his country. He then entreated the king not to reveal the contents of

Emmanuel's letter to the Moors; and the king, with great apparent

friendship, desired Gama to guard against the perfidy of that people. At

this time, it is highly probable, the zamorim was sincere.

Every hour since the arrival of the fleet the Moors had held secret

conferences. That one man of it might not return was their purpose; and

every method to accomplish this was meditated. To influence the king

against the Portuguese, to assassinate Gama, to raise a general

insurrection to destroy the foreign navy, and to bribe the catual, were

determined. And the catual (the master of the house where Gama was

lodged) accepted the bribe, and entered into their interest. Of all

these circumstances, however, Gama was apprised by his faithful

interpreter, Monzaida, whose affection to the foreign admiral the Moors

hitherto had not suspected. Thus informed, and having obtained the faith

of an alliance from the sovereign of the first port of India, Gama

resolved to elude the plots of the Moors; and accordingly, before the

dawn, he set out for Pandarene, in hope to get aboard his fleet by some

of the boats which he had ordered to hover about the shore.

But the Moors were vigilant. His escape was immediately known, and the

catual, by the king's order, pursued and brought him back by force. The

catual, however (for it was necessary for their schemes to have the

ships in their power), behaved with politeness to the admiral, and

promised to use all his interest in his behalf.

The eagerness of the Moors now contributed to the safety of Gama. Their

principal merchants were admitted to a formal audience, when one of

their orators accused the Portuguese as a nation of faithless

plunderers: Gama, he said, was an exiled pirate, who had marked his

course with blood and depredation. If he were not a pirate, still there

was no excuse for giving such warlike foreigners any footing in a

country already supplied with all that nature and commerce could give.

He expatiated on the great services which the Moorish traders had

rendered to Calicut; and ended with a threat, that all the Moors would

leave the zamorim's ports and find some other settlement, if he

permitted these foreigners any share in the commerce of his dominions.

However staggered with these arguments and threats, the zamorim was not

blind to the self-interest and malice of the Moors. He therefore

ordered, that the admiral should once more be brought before him. In the

meanwhile the catual tried many stratagems to get the fleet into the

harbour; and at last, in the name of his master, made an absolute demand

that the sails and rudders should be delivered up, as the pledge of

Gama's honesty. But these demands were as absolutely refused by Gama,

who sent a letter to his brother by Monzaida, enforcing his former

orders in the strongest manner, declaring that his fate gave him no

concern, that he was only unhappy lest the fruits of all their fatigue

and dangers should be lost. After two days spent in vain altercation

with the catual, Gama was brought as a prisoner before the king. The

king repeated his accusation; upbraided him with non-compliance to the

requests of his minister; urged him, if he were an exile or a pirate, to

confess freely, in which case he promised to take him into his service,

and highly promote him on account of his abilities. But Gama, who with

great spirit had baffled all the stratagems of the catual, behaved with

the same undaunted bravery before the king. He asserted his innocence,

pointed out the malice of the Moors, and the improbability of his

piracy; boasted of the safety of his fleet, offered his life rather than

his sails and rudders, and concluded with threats in the name of his

sovereign. The zamorim, during the whole conference, eyed Gama with the

keenest attention, and clearly perceived in his unfaltering mien the

dignity of truth, and the consciousness that he was the admiral of a

great monarch. In their late address, the Moors had treated the zamorim

as somewhat dependent upon them, and he saw that a commerce with other

nations would certainly lessen their dangerous importance. His avarice

strongly desired the commerce of Portugal; and his pride was flattered

in humbling the Moors. After many proposals, it was at last agreed, that

of his twelve attendants he should leave seven as hostages; that what

goods were aboard his fleet should be landed; and that Gama should be

safely conducted to his ship, after which the treaty of commerce and

alliance was to be finally settled. And thus, when the assassination of

Gama seemed inevitable, the zamorim suddenly dropped his demand for the

sails and rudders, rescued him from his determined enemies, and restored

him to liberty and the command of his navy.

As soon as he was aboard[60] the goods were landed, accompanied by a

letter from Gama to the zamorim, wherein he boldly complained of the

treachery of the catual. The zamorim, in answer, promised to make

inquiry, and punish him, if guilty; but did nothing in the affair. Gama,

who had now anchored nearer to the city, every day sent two or three

different persons on some business to Calicut, that as many of his men

as possible might be able to give some account of India. The Moors,

meanwhile, every day assaulted the ears of the king, who now began to

waver; when Gama, who had given every proof of his desire of peace and

friendship, sent another letter, in which he requested the zamorim to

permit him to leave a consul at Calicut to manage the affairs of King

Emmanuel. But to this request--the most reasonable result of a

commercial treaty--the zamorim returned a refusal full of rage and

indignation. Gama, now fully master of the character of the zamorim,

resolved to treat a man of such an inconstant, dishonourable disposition

with a contemptuous silence. This contempt was felt by the king, who,

yielding to the advice of the catual and the entreaties of the Moors,

seized the Portuguese goods, and ordered two of the seven hostages--the

two who had the charge of the cargo--to be put in irons. The admiral

remonstrated by means of Monzaida, but the king still persisted in his

treacherous breach of faith. Repeated solicitations made him more

haughty, and it was now the duty and interest of Gama to use force. He

took a vessel, in which were six nayres, or noblemen, and nineteen of

their servants. The servants he set ashore to relate the tidings, the

noblemen he detained. As soon as the news had time to spread through the

city, he hoisted his sails, and, though with a slow motion, seemed to

proceed on his homeward voyage. The city was now in an uproar; the

friends of the captive noblemen surrounded the palace, and loudly

accused the policy of the Moors. The king, in all the perplexed distress

of a haughty, avaricious, weak prince, sent after Gama, delivered up all

the hostages, and submitted to his proposals; nay, even solicited that

an agent should be left, and even descended to the meanness of a

palpable lie. The two factors, he said, he had put in irons, only to

detain them till he might write letters to his brother Emmanuel, and the

goods he had kept on shore that an agent might be sent to dispose of

them. Gama, however, perceived a mysterious trifling, and, previous to

any treaty, insisted upon the restoration of the goods.

The day after this altercation Monzaida came aboard the fleet in great

perturbation. The Moors, he said, had raised great commotions, and had

enraged the king against the Portuguese. The king's ships were getting

ready, and a numerous Moorish fleet from Mecca was daily expected. To

delay Gama till this force arrived was the purpose of the Court and of

the Moors, who were now confident of success. To this information

Monzaida added, that the Moors, suspecting his attachment to Gama, had

determined to assassinate him; that he had narrowly escaped from them;

that it was impossible for him to recover his effects, and that his only

hope was in the protection of Gama. Gama rewarded him with the

friendship he merited, took him with him, as he desired, to Lisbon, and

procured him a recompense for his services.

Almost immediately seven boats arrived loaded with the goods, and

demanded the restoration of the captive noblemen. Gama took the goods on

board, but refused to examine if they were entire, and also refused to

deliver the prisoners. He had been promised an ambassador to his

sovereign, he said, but had been so often deluded he could trust such a

faithless people no longer, and would therefore carry away the captives

to convince the King of Portugal what insults and injustice his

ambassador and admiral had suffered from the Zamorim of Calicut. Having

thus dismissed the Indians, he fired his cannon and hoisted his sails. A

calm, however, detained him on the coast some days; and the zamorim,

seizing the opportunity, sent what vessels he could fit out (sixty in

all), full of armed men, to attack him. Though Gama's cannon were well

handled, confident of their numbers, they pressed on to board him, when

a sudden tempest arose, which Gama's ships rode out in safety, miserably

dispersed the Indian fleet, and completed their ruin.

After this victory the admiral made a halt at a little island near the

shore, where he erected a cross,[61] bearing the name and arms of his

Portuguese majesty. From this place, by the hand of Monzaida, he wrote a

letter to the zamorim, wherein he gave a full and circumstantial account

of all the plots of the catual and the Moors. Still, however, he

professed his desire of a commercial treaty, and promised to represent

the zamorim in the best light to Emmanuel. The prisoners, he said,

should be kindly used, were only kept as ambassadors to his sovereign,

and should be returned to India when they were enabled from experience

to give an account of Portugal. The letter he sent by one of the

captives, who by this means obtained his liberty.

The fame of Gama had now spread over the Indian seas, and the Moors were

everywhere intent on his destruction. As he was near the shore of

Anchediva, he beheld the appearance of a floating isle, covered with

trees, advance towards him. But his prudence was not to be thus

deceived. A bold pirate, named Timoja, by linking together eight vessels

full of men and covered with green boughs, thought to board him by

surprise. But Gama's cannon made seven of them fly; the eighth, loaded

with fruits and provision, he took. The beautiful island of Anchediva

now offered a convenient place to careen his ships and refresh his men.

While he stayed here, the first minister of Zabajo, king of Goa, one of

the most powerful princes of India, came on board, and, in the name of

his master, congratulated the admiral in the Italian tongue. Provisions,

arms, and money were offered to Gama, and he was entreated to accept the

friendship of Zabajo. The admiral was struck with admiration; the

address and abilities of the minister appeared so conspicuous. He said

he was an Italian by birth, but in sailing to Greece, had been taken by

pirates, and after various misfortunes, had been necessitated to enter

into the service of a Mohammedan prince, the nobleness of whose

disposition he commended in the highest terms. Yet, with all his

abilities, Gama perceived an artful inquisitiveness--that nameless

something which does not accompany simple honesty. After a long

conference, Gama abruptly upbraided him as a spy, and ordered him to be

put to the torture. And this soon brought a confession, that he was a

Polish Jew by birth, and was sent to examine the strength of the fleet

by Zabajo, who was mustering all his power to attack the Portuguese.

Gama, on this, immediately set sail, and took the spy along with him,

who soon after was baptized, and named Jasper de Gama, the admiral being

his godfather. He afterwards became of great service to Emmanuel.

Gama now stood westward through the Indian Ocean, and after being long

delayed by calms, arrived off Magadoxa, on the coast of Africa. This

place was a principal port of the Moors; he therefore levelled the walls

of the city with his cannon, and burned and destroyed all the ships in

the harbour. Soon after this he descried eight Moorish vessels bearing

down upon him; his artillery, however, soon made them use their oars in

flight, nor could Gama overtake any of them for want of wind. The

hospitable harbour of Melinda was the next place he reached. His men,

almost worn out with fatigue and sickness, here received a second time

every assistance which an accomplished and generous prince could bestow.

And having taken an ambassador on board, he again set sail, in hope that

he might pass the Cape of Good Hope while the favourable weather

continued; for his acquaintance with the eastern seas now suggested to

him that the tempestuous season was periodical. Soon after he set sail

his brother's ship struck on a sand bank, and was burnt by order of the

admiral. His brother and part of the crew he took into his own ship, the

rest he sent on board of Coello's; nor were more hands now alive than

were necessary to man the two vessels which remained. Having taken in

provisions at the island of Zanzibar (where they were kindly entertained

by a Mohammedan prince of the same sect with the King of Melinda), they

safely doubled the Cape of Good Hope on April 26, 1499, and continued

till they reached the island of St. Iago, in favourable weather. But a

tempest here separated the two ships, and gave Gama and Coello an

opportunity to show the goodness of their hearts in a manner which does

honour to human nature.

The admiral was now near the Azores, when Paulus de Gama, long worn with

fatigue and sickness, was unable to endure the motion of the ship.

Vasco, therefore, put into the island of Tercera, in hope of his

brother's recovery. And such was his affection, that rather than leave

him he gave the command of his ship to one of his officers. But the hope

of recovery was vain. John de Sa proceeded to Lisbon with the flag ship,

while the admiral remained behind to soothe the deathbed of his brother,

and perform his funeral rites. Coello, meanwhile, landed at Lisbon, and

hearing that Gama had not arrived, imagined he might either be

shipwrecked or beating about in distress. Without seeing one of his

family he immediately set sail again, on purpose to bring relief to his

friend and admiral. But this generous design was prevented by an order

from the king, ere he got out of the Tagus.

The particulars of the voyage were now diffused by Coello, and the joy

of the king was only equalled by the admiration of the people. Yet,

while all the nation was fired with zeal to express their esteem of the

happy admiral, he himself, the man who was such an enthusiast to the

success of his voyage that he would willingly have sacrificed his life

in India to secure that success, was now in the completion of it a

dejected mourner. The compliments of the Court, and the shouts of the

street, were irksome to him; for his brother, the companion of his toils

and dangers, was not there to share the joy. As soon as he had waited on

the king, he shut himself up in a lonely house near the seaside at

Belem, from whence it was some time ere he was drawn to mingle in public

life.

During this important expedition, two years and almost two months

elapsed. Of 160 men who went out, only 55 returned. These were all

rewarded by the king. Coello was pensioned with 100 ducats a year, and

made a fidalgo, or gentleman of the king's household, a degree of

nobility in Portugal. The title of Don was annexed to the family of

Vasco de Gama. He was appointed admiral of the eastern seas, with an

annual salary of 3000 ducats, and a part of the king's arms was added to

his. Public thanksgivings to Heaven were celebrated throughout the

churches of the kingdom; while feasts, dramatic performances, and

chivalrous entertainments (or tournaments), according to the taste of

that age, demonstrated the joy of Portugal.

Pedro Alvarez Cabral was the second Portuguese admiral who sailed for

India. He entered into alliance with Trimumpara, king of Cochin, and

high priest of Malabar. (See Bk. x. p. 302.)

Gama, having left six ships for the protection of Cochin and Cananor,

had sailed for Portugal with twelve ships, laden with the riches of the

East. As soon as his departure was made known, the zamorim made great

preparations to attack Cochin--a city situated on an island, divided by

an arm of the sea from the main-land. At one part, however, this creek

was fordable at low water. The zamorim having renewed the war, at

length, by force of numbers and bribery, took the city; and the King of

Cochin, stripped of his dominions, but still faithful to the Portuguese,

fled to the island of Viopia. Francisco Albuquerque, with other

commanders, having heard of the fate of Cochin, set sail for its relief;

the garrison of the zamorim fled, and Trimumpara was restored to his

throne. Every precaution by which the passage to the island of Cochin

might be secured was now taken by Pacheco. The Portuguese took the

sacrament, and devoted themselves to death. The King of Cochin's troops

amounted only to 5000 men, while the army of the zamorim numbered

57,000, provided with brass cannon, and assisted by two Italian

engineers. Yet this immense army, laying siege to Cochin, was defeated.

Seven times the zamorim raised new armies; yet they were all vanquished

at the fords of Cochin, by the intrepidity and stratagems of Pacheco. In

the later battles the zamorim exposed himself to the greatest danger,

and was sometimes sprinkled with the blood of his slain attendants--a

circumstance mentioned in the Lusiad, bk. x. p. 304. He then had

recourse to fraud and poison; but all his attempts were baffled. At

last, in despair, he resigned his throne, and shut himself up for the

rest of his days in one of the temples.

Soon after the kingdom of Cochin was restored to prosperity Pacheco was

recalled. The King of Portugal paid the highest compliments to his

valour, and gave him the government of a possession of the crown in

Africa. But merit always has enemies: Pacheco was accused and brought to

Lisbon in irons, where he remained for a considerable time chained in a

dungeon. He was at length tried, and after a full investigation of the

charges made against him, was honourably acquitted. His services to his

country were soon forgotten, his merits were no longer thought of, and

the unfortunate Pacheco ended his days in an alms-house--a circumstance

referred to in the Lusiad, bk. x. p. 305.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

PAGE

Subject proposed 1, 2

Invocation to the Muses of the Tagus 3

Address to Don Sebastian 3, 4

Assembly of the gods and goddesses 8

The fleet enters the Indian Ocean 13

Discovers islands there 13

Description of the natives 14

Intercourse with the ships 15, 16

The governor visits Gama 17, 18

Bacchus determines on obstructing the fleet 20

His stratagem for that purpose 21

Attack by the Portuguese on landing to obtain water 23

Bombardment of the town 24, 25

Another plot of Bacchus 26, 27

The poet's reflections 29

BOOK II.

Treacherous invitation from the King of Mombas for the fleet

to enter the harbour 31

Messengers sent on shore by Gama to look at the town 32, 33

Venus and the Nereids save the fleet from danger 35, 36

Venus appeals to Jupiter on behalf of the expedition 40

His reply 43

Mercury sent to earth 46

His message to Gama in a dream 47

How the vessels escaped 49

They meet two Moorish ships 49

Their account of Melinda and its king 50

Hospitable reception by the King of Melinda 51

Gama's address 52

The king's reply 53, 54

Night rejoicings in the ships and on shore 54, 55

Visit of the king to the fleet 55

Gama's speech 57

The king requests Gama to describe his country and relate its

history 58

BOOK III.

Invocation to Calliope 60

Gama commences his story 61

Geographical description of Europe 62

Ancient history of Portugal commences 66

Fidelity of Egas Moniz 70, 71

Battle of Ourique 72-75

Origin of the Portuguese shield and arms 76

Leiria, Mafra, Cintra, Lisbon, etc. 76-78

Palmella, etc., taken from the Moors 79

Alphonso at war with the Leonese 79, 80

Gathering of the Moors to invest Santarem 81

Defeated by the Portuguese 83

Death of Alphonso 83

Don Sancho besieges Sylves 84

Character of Sancho II. 85

" " King Dionis 87

" " Alphonso IV. 87

The Moors assemble again to invade Portugal 88

The Queen of Spain asks aid from her father, the King of

Portugal 88

The two allied sovereigns defeat the Moors 90

Episode of Inez de Castro, or the "Fair Inez" 92-96

Character of King Ferdinand 100

BOOK IV.

State of Portugal on the death of Ferdinand 103

King John succeeds to the throne 103

Character of Queen Leonora 104

Castitlians assemble in aid of Beatrice, daughter of Leonora 106

Don Nuno Alvarez's loyalty 107

Battle between the Portuguese and Castilians 113

The latter defeated 116, 117

Alphonso, after defeating the Moors, attacks the King of

Arragon 117

Alphonso dies, and is succeeded by John II. 118

King John sends to explore the East by land 122

Emmanuel succeeds; his dream of the rivers Ganges and Indus 123

The king consults his council 125

Entrusts the expedition to Vasco de Gama 125

Vasco de Gama's preparations 127

Parting of the armada with their friends 129

The old man's farewell address 130

BOOK V.

Departure of the fleet from Lisbon 133

Madeira, Coast of Morocco, the Azenegues 134

The river Senegal, Cape Verde, San Jago, Jalofo, Mandinga 135

Dorcades, Sierra Leone, Cape Palmas 136

St. Thomas, Congo, the river Zaire 137

A water-spout described 139

They land near the Tropic of Capricorn 141

A native African met with 141

Veloso's adventure on shore 142

Gigantic vision of the Cape 146

The armada lands at Saõ Braz 153

Currents encountered 155

The armada touches at Natal 155

Reaches Sofála; description of the inhabitants 157

The crews attacked by scurvy 158

Vasco de Gama compares his voyage with the narratives of

ancient poets, and concludes his story 159

Reflections on the subject by the poet 161, 162

BOOK VI.

Hospitality of the King of Melinda 164

Gama takes his leave 166

Bacchus descends to Neptune's abode 166

Description thereof 167

The sea-gods assembled by Neptune. Bacchus' address to

Neptune and the other sea-gods 169

Neptune orders Æolus to let loose the winds on the Portuguese

fleet 173

The fleet on a tranquil sea 174

Veloso, to pass the time away, relates the story of a

tournament in England 175

A dark cloud comes over, and the storm arises 183

Venus, the morning star, appears, and the goddess calls the

Nereids to her aid 188

Orithya, Galatea, and other sea-nymphs persuade Boreas to cease

his blustering 189

Morning appears, and with it the mountain-tops of the

Indian coast 190

Gama returns thanks to God 190

The poet's reflections 190, 191

BOOK VII.

The Portuguese exhorted to the warfare of the cross, other

nations being reproved 193-197

India described 198

The fleet anchors, and a message is sent on shore 198

Meeting with Mozaide, who speaks Spanish 199

Mozaide visits Gama, and describes the country 200

Gama goes on shore 209

Enters with the kotwâl into an Indian temple 209

Gama's interview with the Indian king 213

His speech 214

The king's reply 215

Mozaide's description of the Portuguese 216

Visit of the kotwâl to the ships 217

The poet invokes the nymphs of the Tagus, and briefly

describes his own shipwreck and other misfortunes 218-221

BOOK VIII.

Description of the pictures 222

Bacchus appears as Mohammed, to a priest in a dream 238

The king consults with the magi and the soothsayers 240

The priest consults his friends 241

How evil counsellors mislead kings 242

The king's defiant speech and base accusation 244

Gama's answer to the king 245-247

Gama detained prisoner in the kotwâl's house 250

BOOK IX.

The king visits the house of the kotwâl 252

Addresses Gama, detained as a prisoner there 252

On what conditions he may be allowed to return to his fleet 253

Gama's indignant reply 253, 254

The king orders the signal to be given 254

The Moorish vessels surround the fleet, and attack it with

clouds of arrows 255

The drums and trumpets of the fleet call to action 255

Destruction of the Moorish vessels by the cannon of the ships 256

Bombardment of Calicut by the fleet 257

The terrified multitude implores the king to release

his prisoner 258

The king implores Gama to spare his city and people 258

Gama's dignified reply 258

The terms offered by the king rejected by Gama 259

Gama directs the king to hoist the Portuguese flag and

convey him to his ships 260

Peace restored. Presents of Indian productions 261

Mozaide had discovered to Gama the intended treachery 261

Conversion to Christianity of Mozaide 262

Return of the fleet to Portugal with the hostages 262

Venus raises the Island of Love in the sea, to afford

the sailors a resting-place. She summons the Nereids,

and informs them of her intentions. Seeks her son, Cupid 264

Cupid discharges the arrows of love at the sea-nymphs 269-271

Approach of the Portuguese fleet 273

The Island of Love described 274-280

The sailors land and pursue the nymphs 280-288

Tethys leads Gama to a palace on a lofty hill 289

The allegory explained 290

BOOK X.

Happiness of the heroes and nymphs 299

The poet apostrophizes his muse and bewails his own fate 301, 302

The siren's prophetic song 302

She pauses to reflect on the ill-requited bravery of

Pacheco 305

The siren resumes her prophetic song 305

Foretells the needless cruelty of Albuquerque, who puts to

death a soldier for a venial offence 310, 311

Soarez, Sequeyra, Menez, Mascarene, Nunio, Noronha, Souza,

and other heroes 312-318

The nymph Tethys leads them to the summit of a rugged

hill, where the globe in miniature is displayed

before them 319

The Ptolemean system described 320

Sketch of the geography of the world 325

History of St. Thomas, the Apostle of India 331-335

Geographical description continued 337-353

Tethys bids the Portuguese farewell 353

Their return home and reception at Lisbon 356

The poet's conclusion, and patriotic exhortation to

his sovereign 356, 357

THE LUSIAD.[62]

BOOK I.

ARGUMENT.

Statement of the subject. Invocation to the muses of the Tagus. Herald

calls an assembly of the gods. Jupiter foretells the future conquests of

the Portuguese. Bacchus, apprehensive that the Portuguese may eclipse

the glory acquired by himself in the conquest of India, declares against

them. Venus, who sees in the Portuguese her ancient Romans, promises to

aid their enterprise. Mars induces Jupiter to support them, and Mercury

is sent to direct their course. Gama, commander of the expedition, lands

at Mozambique and Mombas. Opposition of the Moors, instigated by

Bacchus. They grant Gama a pilot who designs treacherously to take them

to Quiloa to ensure the destruction of the whole expedition.

Arms and the Heroes, who from Lisbon's shore,

Thro' seas[63] where sail was never spread before,

Beyond where Ceylon lifts her spicy breast,

And waves her woods above the wat'ry waste,

With prowess more than human forc'd their way

To the fair kingdoms of the rising day:

What wars they wag'd, what seas, what dangers pass'd,

What glorious empire crown'd their toils at last,

Vent'rous I sing, on soaring pinions borne,

And all my country's wars[64] the song adorn;

What kings, what heroes of my native land

Thunder'd on Asia's and on Afric's strand:

Illustrious shades, who levell'd in the dust

The idol-temples and the shrines of lust:

And where, erewhile, foul demons were rever'd,

To Holy Faith unnumber'd altars rear'd:[65]

Illustrious names, with deathless laurels crown'd,

While time rolls on in every clime renown'd!

Let Fame with wonder name the Greek[66] no more,

What lands he saw, what toils at sea he bore;

Nor more the Trojan's wand'ring[67] voyage boast,

What storms he brav'd on many a perilous coast:

No more let Rome exult in Trajan's name,

Nor Eastern conquests Ammon's[68] pride proclaim;

A nobler hero's deeds demand my lays

Than e'er adorn'd the song of ancient days,

Illustrious GAMA,[69] whom the waves obey'd,

And whose dread sword the fate of empire sway'd.

And you, fair nymphs of Tagus, parent stream,

If e'er your meadows were my pastoral theme,

While you have listen'd, and by moonshine seen

My footsteps wander o'er your banks of green,

O come auspicious, and the song inspire

With all the boldness of your hero's fire:

Deep and majestic let the numbers flow,

And, rapt to heaven, with ardent fury glow,

Unlike the verse that speaks the lover's grief,

When heaving sighs afford their soft relief,

And humble reeds bewail the shepherd's pain;

But like the warlike trumpet be the strain

To rouse the hero's ire, and far around,

With equal rage, your warriors' deeds resound.

And thou,[70] O born the pledge of happier days,

To guard our freedom and our glories raise,

Given to the world to spread Religion's sway,

And pour o'er many a land the mental day,

Thy future honours on thy shield behold,

The cross and victor's wreath emboss'd in gold:

At thy commanding frown we trust to see,

The Turk and Arab bend the suppliant knee:

Beneath the morn,[71] dread king, thine empire lies,

When midnight veils thy Lusitanian[72] skies;

And when, descending in the western main,

The sun[73] still rises on thy length'ning reign:

Thou blooming scion of the noblest stem,

Our nation's safety, and our age's gem,

O young Sebastian, hasten to the prime

Of manly youth, to Fame's high temple climb:

Yet now attentive hear the Muse's lay

While thy green years to manhood speed away:

The youthful terrors of thy brow suspend,

And, oh, propitious to the song attend--

The num'rous song, by patriot-passion fir'd,

And by the glories of thy race inspir'd:

To be the herald of my country's fame

My first ambition and my dearest aim:

Nor conquests fabulous nor actions vain,

The Muse's pastime, here adorn the strain:

Orlando's fury, and Rugero's rage,

And all the heroes of th' Aonian page,[74]

The dreams of bards surpass'd the world shall view,

And own their boldest fictions may be true;

Surpass'd and dimm'd by the superior blaze

Of GAMA'S mighty deeds, which here bright Truth displays.

Nor more let History boast her heroes old,

Their glorious rivals here, dread prince, behold:

Here shine the valiant Nunio's deeds unfeign'd,

Whose single arm the falling state sustain'd;

Here fearless Egas' wars, and, Fuas, thine,

To give full ardour to the song combine;

But ardour equal to your martial ire

Demands the thund'ring sounds of Homer's lyre.

To match the Twelve so long by bards renown'd,[75]

Here brave Magricio and his peers are crown'd

(A glorious Twelve!) with deathless laurels, won

In gallant arms before the English throne.

Unmatch'd no more the Gallic Charles shall stand,

Nor Cæsar's name the first of praise command:

Of nobler acts the crown'd Alonzo[76] see,

Thy valiant sires, to whom the bended knee

Of vanquish'd Afric bow'd. Nor less in fame,

He who confin'd the rage of civil flame,

The godlike John, beneath whose awful sword

Rebellion crouch'd, and trembling own'd him lord

Those heroes, too, who thy bold flag unfurl'd,

And spread thy banners o'er the Eastern world,

Whose spears subdu'd the kingdoms of the morn,

Their names and glorious wars the song adorn:

The daring GAMA, whose unequall'd name

(Proud monarch) shines o'er all of naval fame:

Castro the bold, in arms a peerless knight,

And stern Pacheco, dreadful in the fight:

The two Almeydas, names for ever dear,

By Tago's nymphs embalm'd with many a tear;

Ah, still their early fate the nymphs shall mourn,

And bathe with many a tear their hapless urn:

Nor shall the godlike Albuquerque restrain

The Muse's fury; o'er the purpled plain

The Muse shall lead him in his thund'ring car

Amidst his glorious brothers of the war,

Whose fame in arms resounds from sky to sky,

And bids their deeds the power of death defy.

And while, to thee, I tune the duteous lay,

Assume, O potent king, thine empire's sway;

With thy brave host through Afric march along,

And give new triumphs to immortal song:

On thee with earnest eyes the nations wait,

And, cold with dread, the Moor expects his fate;

The barb'rous mountaineer on Taurus' brows

To thy expected yoke his shoulder bows;

Fair Thetis woos thee with her blue domain,

Her nuptial son, and fondly yields her reign,

And from the bow'rs of heav'n thy grandsires[77] see

Their various virtues bloom afresh in thee;

One for the joyful days of peace renown'd,

And one with war's triumphant laurels crown'd:

With joyful hands, to deck thy manly brow,

They twine the laurel and the olive-bough;

With joyful eyes a glorious throne they see,

In Fame's eternal dome, reserv'd for thee.

Yet, while thy youthful hand delays to wield

The sceptre'd power, or thunder of the field,

Here view thine Argonauts, in seas unknown,

And all the terrors of the burning zone,

Till their proud standards, rear'd in other skies,

And all their conquests meet thy wond'ring[78] eyes.

Now, far from land, o'er Neptune's dread abode

The Lusitanian fleet triumphant rode;

Onward they traced the wide and lonesome main,

Where changeful Proteus leads his scaly train;

The dancing vanes before the zephyrs flow'd,

And their bold keels the trackless ocean plough'd;

Unplough'd before, the green-ting'd billows rose,

And curl'd and whiten'd round the nodding prows.

When Jove, the god who with a thought controls

The raging seas, and balances the poles,

From heav'n beheld, and will'd, in sov'reign state,

To fix the Eastern World's depending fate,

Swift at his nod th' Olympian herald flies,

And calls th' immortal senate of the skies;

Where, from the sov'reign throne of earth and heav'n,

Th' immutable decrees of fate are given.

Instant the regents of the spheres of light,

And those who rule the paler orbs of night,

With those, the gods whose delegated sway

The burning South and frozen North obey;

And they whose empires see the day-star rise,

And evening Phoebus leave the western skies,

All instant pour'd along the milky road,

Heaven's crystal pavements glitt'ring as they trod:

And now, obedient to the dread command,

Before their awful lord in order stand.

Sublime and dreadful on his regal throne,

That glow'd with stars, and bright as lightning shone,

Th' immortal Sire, who darts the thunder, sat,

The crown and sceptre added solemn state;

The crown, of heaven's own pearls, whose ardent rays,

Flam'd round his brows, outshone the diamond's blaze:

His breath such gales of vital fragrance shed,

As might, with sudden life, inspire the dead:

Supreme Control thron'd in his awful eyes

Appear'd, and mark'd the monarch of the skies.

On seats that burn'd with pearl and ruddy gold,

The subject gods their sov'reign lord enfold,

Each in his rank, when with a voice that shook

The tow'rs of heav'n, the world's dread ruler spoke:

"Immortal heirs of light, my purpose hear,

My counsels ponder, and the Fates revere:

Unless Oblivion o'er your minds has thrown

Her dark blank shades, to you, ye gods, are known

The Fate's decree, and ancient warlike fame

Of that bold race which boasts of Lusus' name;

That bold advent'rous race, the Fates declare,

A potent empire in the East shall rear,

Surpassing Babel's or the Persian fame,

Proud Grecia's boast, or Rome's illustrious name.

Oft from these brilliant seats have you beheld

The sons of Lusus on the dusty field,

Though few, triumphant o'er the num'rous Moors,

Till, from the beauteous lawns on Tagus' shores

They drove the cruel foe. And oft has heav'n

Before their troops the proud Castilians driv'n;

While Victory her eagle-wings display'd

Where'er their warriors wav'd the shining blade,

Nor rests unknown how Lusus' heroes stood

When Rome's ambition dyed the world with blood;

What glorious laurels Viriatus[79] gain'd,

How oft his sword with Roman gore was stain'd;

And what fair palms their martial ardour crown'd,

When led to battle by the chief renown'd,

Who[80] feign'd a dæmon, in a deer conceal'd,

To him the counsels of the gods reveal'd.

And now, ambitious to extend their sway

Beyond their conquests on the southmost bay

Of Afric's swarthy coast, on floating wood

They brave the terrors of the dreary flood,

Where only black-wing'd mists have hover'd o'er,

Or driving clouds have sail'd the wave before;

Beneath new skies they hold their dreadful way

To reach the cradle of the new-born day:

And Fate, whose mandates unrevok'd remain,

Has will'd that long shall Lusus' offspring reign

The lords of that wide sea, whose waves behold

The sun come forth enthron'd in burning gold.

But now, the tedious length of winter past,

Distress'd and weak, the heroes faint at last.

What gulfs they dar'd, you saw, what storms they brav'd,

Beneath what various heav'ns their banners wav'd!

Now Mercy pleads, and soon the rising land

To their glad eyes shall o'er the waves expand;

As welcome friends the natives shall receive,

With bounty feast them, and with joy relieve.

And, when refreshment shall their strength renew,

Thence shall they turn, and their bold route pursue."

So spoke high Jove: the gods in silence heard,

Then rising, each by turns his thoughts preferr'd:

But chief was Bacchus of the adverse train;

Fearful he was, nor fear'd his pride in vain,

Should Lusus' race arrive on India's shore,

His ancient honours would be known no more;

No more in Nysa[81] should the native tell

What kings, what mighty hosts before him fell.

The fertile vales beneath the rising sun

He view'd as his, by right of victory won,

And deem'd that ever in immortal song

The Conqueror's title should to him belong.

Yet Fate, he knew, had will'd, that loos'd from Spain

Boldly advent'rous thro' the polar main,

A warlike race should come, renown'd in arms,

And shake the eastern world with war's alarms,

Whose glorious conquests and eternal fame

In black Oblivion's waves should whelm his name.

Urania-Venus,[82] queen of sacred love,

Arose and fixed her asking eyes on Jove;

Her eyes, well pleas'd, in Lusus' sons could trace

A kindred likeness to the Roman race,

For whom of old such kind regard she bore;[83]

The same their triumphs on Barbaria's shore,

The same the ardour of their warlike flame,

The manly music of their tongue the same:[84]

Affection thus the lovely goddess sway'd,

Nor less what Fate's unblotted page display'd,

Where'er this people should their empire raise,

She knew her altars would unnumber'd blaze,

And barb'rous nations at her holy shrine

Be humaniz'd and taught her lore divine.

Her spreading honours thus the one inspir'd,

And one the dread to lose his worship fir'd.

Their struggling factions shook th' Olympian state

With all the clam'rous tempest of debate.

Thus, when the storm with sudden gust invades

The ancient forest's deep and lofty shades,

The bursting whirlwinds tear their rapid course,

The shatter'd oaks crash, and with echoes hoarse

The mountains groan, while whirling on the blast

The thick'ning leaves a gloomy darkness cast;

Such was the tumult in the blest abodes,

When Mars, high tow'ring o'er the rival gods,

Stepp'd forth: stern sparkles from his eye-balls glanc'd,

And now, before the throne of Jove advanc'd,

O'er his left shoulder his broad shield he throws,

And lifts his helm[85] above his dreadful brows:

Bold and enrag'd he stands, and, frowning round,

Strikes his tall spear-staff on the sounding ground;

Heav'n trembled, and the light turn'd pale[86]--such dread

His fierce demeanour o'er Olympus spread--

When thus the warrior: "O Eternal Sire,

Thine is the sceptre, thine the thunder's fire,

Supreme dominion thine; then, Father, hear,

Shall that bold race which once to thee was dear,

Who, now fulfilling thy decrees of old,

Through these wild waves their fearless journey hold,

Shall that bold race no more thy care engage,

But sink the victims of unhallow'd rage!

Did Bacchus yield to Reason's voice divine,

Bacchus the cause of Lusus' sons would join,

Lusus, the lov'd companion of his cares,

His earthly toils, his dangers, and his wars:

But envy still a foe to worth will prove,

To worth, though guarded by the arm of Jove.

"Then thou, dread Lord of Fate, unmov'd remain,

Nor let weak change thine awful counsels stain,

For Lusus' race thy promis'd favour show;

Swift as the arrow from Apollo's bow

Let Maia's[87] son explore the wat'ry way,

Where, spent with toil, with weary hopes, they stray;

And safe to harbour, through the deep untried,

Let him, empower'd, their wand'ring vessels guide;

There let them hear of India's wish'd-for shore,

And balmy rest their fainting strength restore."

He spoke: high Jove assenting bow'd the head,

And floating clouds of nectar'd fragrance shed:

Then, lowly bending to th' Eternal Sire,

Each in his duteous rank, the gods retire.

Whilst thus in heaven's bright palace fate was weigh'd

Right onward still the brave Armada strayed:

Right on they steer by Ethiopia's strand

And pastoral Madagascar's[88] verdant land.

Before the balmy gales of cheerful spring,

With heav'n their friend, they spread the canvas wing,

The sky cerulean, and the breathing air,

The lasting promise of a calm declare.

Behind them now the Cape of Praso[89] bends,

Another ocean to their view extends,

Where black-topp'd islands, to their longing eyes,

Lav'd by the gentle waves,[90] in prospect rise.

But GAMA (captain of the vent'rous band,

Of bold emprize, and born for high command,

Whose martial fires, with prudence close allied,

Ensur'd the smiles of fortune on his side)

Bears off those shores which waste and wild appear'd,

And eastward still for happier climates steer'd:

When gath'ring round, and black'ning o'er the tide,

A fleet of small canoes the pilot spied;

Hoisting their sails of palm-tree leaves, inwove

With curious art, a swarming crowd they move:

Long were their boats, and sharp to bound along

Through the dash'd waters, broad their oars and strong:

The bending rowers on their features bore

The swarthy marks of Phaeton's[91] fall of yore:

When flaming lightnings scorch'd the banks of Po,

And nations blacken'd in the dread o'erthrow.

Their garb, discover'd as approaching nigh,

Was cotton strip'd with many a gaudy dye:

'Twas one whole piece beneath one arm confin'd,

The rest hung loose and flutter'd on the wind;

All, but one breast, above the loins was bare,

And swelling turbans bound their jetty hair:

Their arms were bearded darts and faulchions broad,

And warlike music sounded as they row'd.

With joy the sailors saw the boats draw near,

With joy beheld the human face appear:

What nations these, their wond'ring thoughts explore,

What rites they follow, and what God adore!

And now with hands and 'kerchiefs wav'd in air

The barb'rous race their friendly mind declare.

Glad were the crew, and ween'd that happy day

Should end their dangers and their toils repay.

The lofty masts the nimble youths ascend,

The ropes they haul, and o'er the yard-arms bend;

And now their bowsprits pointing to the shore,

(A safe moon'd bay), with slacken'd sails they bore:

With cheerful shouts they furl the gather'd sail

That less and less flaps quiv'ring on the gale;

The prows, their speed stopp'd, o'er the surges nod,

The falling anchors dash the foaming flood;

When, sudden as they stopp'd, the swarthy race,

With smiles of friendly welcome on each face,

The ship's high sides swift by the cordage climb:

Illustrious GAMA, with an air sublime,

Soften'd by mild humanity, receives,

And to their chief the hand of friendship gives,

Bids spread the board, and, instant as he said,

Along the deck the festive board is spread:

The sparkling wine in crystal goblets glows,

And round and round with cheerful welcome flows.

While thus the vine its sprightly glee inspires,

From whence the fleet, the swarthy chief enquires,

What seas they past, what 'vantage would attain,

And what the shore their purpose hop'd to gain?

"From farthest west," the Lusian race reply,

"To reach the golden Eastern shores we try.

Through that unbounded sea whose billows roll

From the cold northern to the southern pole;

And by the wide extent, the dreary vast

Of Afric's bays, already have we past;

And many a sky have seen, and many a shore,

Where but sea monsters cut the waves before.

To spread the glories of our monarch's reign,

For India's shore we brave the trackless main,

Our glorious toil, and at his nod would brave

The dismal gulfs of Acheron's[92] black wave.

And now, in turn, your race, your country tell,

If on your lips fair truth delights to dwell

To us, unconscious of the falsehood, show

What of these seas and India's site you know."

"Rude are the natives here," the Moor replied;

"Dark are their minds, and brute-desire their guide:

But we, of alien blood, and strangers here,

Nor hold their customs nor their laws revere.

From Abram's race our holy prophet sprung,[93]

An angel taught, and heaven inspir'd his tongue;

His sacred rites and mandates we obey,

And distant empires own his holy sway.

From isle to isle our trading vessels roam,

Mozambique's harbour our commodious home.

If then your sails for India's shore expand,

For sultry Ganges or Hydaspes'[94] strand,

Here shall you find a pilot skill'd to guide

Through all the dangers of the perilous tide,

Though wide-spread shelves, and cruel rocks unseen,

Lurk in the way, and whirlpools rage between.

Accept, meanwhile, what fruits these islands hold,

And to the regent let your wish be told.

Then may your mates the needful stores provide,

And all your various wants be here supplied."

So spake the Moor, and bearing smiles untrue

And signs of friendship, with his bands withdrew.

O'erpower'd with joy unhop'd the sailors stood,

To find such kindness on a shore so rude.

Now shooting o'er the flood his fervid blaze,

The red-brow'd sun withdraws his beamy rays;

Safe in the bay the crew forget their cares,

And peaceful rest their wearied strength repairs.

Calm twilight now[95] his drowsy mantle spreads,

And shade on shade, the gloom still deep'ning, sheds.

The moon, full orb'd, forsakes her wat'ry cave,

And lifts her lovely head above the wave.

The snowy splendours of her modest ray

Stream o'er the glist'ning waves, and quiv'ring play:

Around her, glitt'ring on the heaven's arch'd brow,

Unnumber'd stars, enclos'd in azure, glow,

Thick as the dew-drops of the April dawn,

Or May-flowers crowding o'er the daisy-lawn:

The canvas whitens in the silvery beam,

And with a mild pale red the pendants gleam:

The masts' tall shadows tremble o'er the deep;

The peaceful winds a holy silence keep;

The watchman's carol, echo'd from the prows,

Alone, at times, awakes the still repose.

Aurora now, with dewy lustre bright,

Appears, ascending on the rear of night.

With gentle hand, as seeming oft to pause,

The purple curtains of the morn she draws;

The sun comes forth, and soon the joyful crew,

Each aiding each, their joyful tasks pursue.

Wide o'er the decks the spreading sails they throw;

From each tall mast the waving streamers flow;

All seems a festive holiday on board

To welcome to the fleet the island's lord.

With equal joy the regent sails to meet,

And brings fresh cates, his off'rings, to the fleet:

For of his kindred race their line he deems,

That savage race[96] who rush'd from Caspia's streams,

And triumph'd o'er the East, and, Asia won,

In proud Byzantium[97] fix'd their haughty throne.

Brave VASCO hails the chief with honest smiles,

And gift for gift with liberal hand he piles.

His gifts, the boast of Europe's heart disclose,

And sparkling red the wine of Tagus flows.

High on the shrouds the wond'ring sailors hung,

To note the Moorish garb, and barb'rous tongue:

Nor less the subtle Moor, with wonder fir'd,

Their mien, their dress, and lordly ships admir'd:

Much he enquires their king's, their country's name,

And, if from Turkey's fertile shores they came?

What God they worshipp'd, what their sacred lore,

What arms they wielded, and what armour wore?

To whom brave GAMA: "Nor of Hagar's blood

Am I, nor plough from Ismael's shores the flood;

From Europe's strand I trace the foamy way,

To find the regions of the infant day.

The God we worship stretch'd yon heaven's high bow,

And gave these swelling waves to roll below;

The hemispheres of night and day He spread,

He scoop'd each vale, and rear'd each mountain's head;

His Word produc'd the nations of the earth,

And gave the spirits of the sky their birth;

On earth, by Him, his holy lore was given,

On earth He came to raise mankind to heaven.

And now behold, what most your eyes desire,

Our shining armour, and our arms of fire;

For who has once in friendly peace beheld,

Will dread to meet them on the battle field."

Straight as he spoke[98] the warlike stores display'd

Their glorious show, where, tire on tire inlaid,

Appear'd of glitt'ring steel the carabines,

There the plum'd helms,[99] and pond'rous brigandines;[100]

O'er the broad bucklers sculptur'd orbs emboss'd

The crooked faulchions, dreadful blades were cross'd:

Here clasping greaves, and plated mail-quilts strong;

The long-bows here, and rattling quivers hung,

And like a grove the burnish'd spears were seen,

With darts and halberts double-edged between;

Here dread grenadoes and tremendous bombs,

With deaths ten thousand lurking in their wombs,

And far around, of brown and dusky red,

The pointed piles of iron balls were spread.

The bombardiers, now to the regent's view

The thund'ring mortars and the cannon drew;

Yet, at their leader's nod, the sons of flame

(For brave and gen'rous ever are the same)

Withheld their hands, nor gave the seeds of fire

To rouse the thunders of the dreadful tire.

For GAMA'S soul disdain'd the pride of show

Which acts the lion o'er the trembling roe.

His joy and wonder oft the Moor express'd,

But rankling hate lay brooding in his breast;

With smiles obedient to his will's control,

He veils the purpose of his treach'rous soul:

For pilots, conscious of the Indian strand,

Brave VASCO sues, and bids the Moor command

What bounteous gifts shall recompense their toils;

The Moor prevents him with assenting smiles,

Resolved that deeds of death, not words of air,

Shall first the hatred of his soul declare;

Such sudden rage his rankling mind possess'd,

When GAMA'S lips Messiah's name confess'd.[101]

Oh depth of Heaven's dread will, that ranc'rous hate

On Heaven's best lov'd in ev'ry clime should wait!

Now, smiling round on all the wond'ring crew

The Moor, attended by his bands, withdrew;

His nimble barges soon approach'd the land,

And shouts of joy receiv'd him on the strand.

From heaven's high dome the vintage-god[102] beheld

(Whom nine long months his father's thigh conceal'd);[103]

Well pleas'd he mark'd the Moor's determin'd hate

And thus his mind revolv'd in self-debate:--

"Has Heaven, indeed, such glorious lot ordain'd,

By Lusus' race such conquests to be gain'd

O'er warlike nations, and on India's shore,

Where I, unrivall'd, claim'd the palm before?

I, sprung from Jove! And shall these wand'ring few,

What Ammon's son[104] unconquer'd left, subdue

Ammon's brave son who led the god of war

His slave auxiliar at his thund'ring car?

Must these possess what Jove to him denied,

Possess what never sooth'd the Roman pride?

Must these the victor's lordly flag display

With hateful blaze beneath the rising day,

My name dishonour'd, and my victories stain'd,

O'erturn'd my altars, and my shrines profan'd?

No; be it mine to fan the Regent's hate;

Occasion seiz'd commands the action's fate.

'Tis mine--this captain, now my dread no more,

Shall never shake his spear on India's shore."

So spake the Power,[105] and with the lightning's flight

For Afric darted thro' the fields of light.

His form divine he cloth'd in human shape,[106]

And rush'd impetuous o'er the rocky cape:

In the dark semblance of a Moor he came

For art and old experience known to fame:

Him all his peers with humble deference heard,

And all Mozambique and its prince rever'd:

The prince in haste he sought, and thus express'd

His guileful hate in friendly counsel dress'd:

"And to the regent of this isle alone

Are these adventurers and their fraud unknown?

Has Fame conceal'd their rapine from his ear?

Nor brought the groans of plunder'd nations here?

Yet still their hands the peaceful olive bore

Whene'er they anchor'd on a foreign shore:

But nor their seeming nor their oaths I trust,

For Afric knows them bloody and unjust.

The nations sink beneath their lawless force,

And fire and blood have mark'd their deadly course.

We too, unless kind Heav'n and thou prevent,

Must fall the victims of their dire intent,

And, gasping in the pangs of death, behold

Our wives led captive, and our daughters sold.

By stealth they come, ere morrow dawn, to bring

The healthful bev'rage from the living spring:

Arm'd with his troops the captain will appear;

For conscious fraud is ever prone to fear.

To meet them there select a trusty band,

And, in close ambush, take thy silent stand;

There wait, and sudden on the heedless foe

Rush, and destroy them ere they dread the blow.

Or say, should some escape the secret snare,

Saved by their fate, their valour, or their care,

Yet their dread fall shall celebrate our isle,

If Fate consent, and thou approve the guile.

Give then a pilot to their wand'ring fleet,

Bold in his art, and tutor'd in deceit;

Whose hand advent'rous shall their helms misguide,

To hostile shores, or whelm them in the tide."

So spoke the god, in semblance of a sage

Renown'd for counsel and the craft of age.

The prince with transport glowing in his face

Approv'd, and caught him in a kind embrace:

And instant at the word his bands prepare

Their bearded darts and implements of war,

That Lusus' sons might purple with their gore

The crystal fountain which they sought on shore:

And, still regardful of his dire intent,

A skilful pilot to the bay he sent,

Of honest mien, yet practised in deceit,

Who far at distance on the beach should wait,

And to the 'scaped, if some should 'scape the snare

Should offer friendship and the pilot's care,

But when at sea, on rocks should dash their pride,

And whelm their lofty vanes beneath the tide.

Apollo[107] now had left his wat'ry bed,

And o'er the mountains of Arabia spread

His rays that glow'd with gold; when GAMA rose,

And from his bands a trusty squadron chose:

Three speedy barges brought their casks to fill

From gurgling fountain, or the crystal rill:

Full arm'd they came, for brave defence prepar'd,

For martial care is ever on the guard:

And secret warnings ever are imprest

On wisdom such as wak'd in GAMA'S breast.

And now, as swiftly springing o'er the tide

Advanc'd the boats, a troop of Moors they spied;

O'er the pale sands the sable warriors crowd,

And toss their threat'ning darts, and shout aloud.

Yet seeming artless, though they dar'd the fight,

Their eager hope they plac'd in artful flight,

To lead brave GAMA where, unseen by day,

In dark-brow'd shades their silent ambush lay.

With scornful gestures o'er the beach they stride,

And push their levell'd spears with barb'rous pride,

Then fix the arrow to the bended bow,

And strike their sounding shields, and dare the foe.

With gen'rous rage the Lusian race beheld,

And each brave breast with indignation swell'd,

To view such foes, like snarling dogs, display

Their threat'ning tusks, and brave the sanguine fray:

Together with a bound they spring to land,

Unknown whose step first trod the hostile strand.

Thus, when to gain his beauteous charmer's smile,

The youthful lover dares the bloody toil,[108]

Before the nodding bull's stern front he stands,

He leaps, he wheels, he shouts, and waves his hands:

The lordly brute disdains the stripling's rage,

His nostrils smoke, and, eager to engage,

His hornèd brows he levels with the ground,

And shuts his flaming eyes, and wheeling round

With dreadful bellowing rushes on the foe,

And lays the boastful gaudy champion low.

Thus to the sight the sons of Lusus sprung,

Nor slow to fall their ample vengeance hung:

With sudden roar the carabines resound,

And bursting echoes from the hills rebound;

The lead flies hissing through the trembling air,

And death's fell dæmons through the flashes glare.

Where, up the land, a grove of palms enclose,

And cast their shadows where the fountain flows,

The lurking ambush from their treach'rous stand

Beheld the combat burning on the strand:

They see the flash with sudden lightnings flare,

And the blue smoke slow rolling on the air:

They see their warriors drop, and starting hear

The ling'ring thunders bursting on their ear.

Amaz'd, appall'd, the treach'rous ambush fled,

And rag'd,[109] and curs'd their birth, and quak'd with dread.

The bands that vaunting show'd their threaten'd might,

With slaughter gor'd, precipitate in flight;

Yet oft, though trembling, on the foe they turn

Their eyes that red with lust of vengeance burn:

Aghast with fear, and stern with desperate rage

The flying war with dreadful howls they wage,

Flints, clods, and javelins hurling as they fly,

As rage[110] and wild despair their hands supply:

And, soon dispers'd, their bands attempt no more

To guard the fountain or defend the shore:

O'er the wide lawns no more their troops appear:

Nor sleeps the vengeance of the victor here;

To teach the nations what tremendous fate

_From his right arm on perjur'd vows should wait,

He seized the time to awe the Eastern world,

And on the breach of faith his thunders hurl'd.

From his black ships the sudden lightnings blaze,

And o'er old Ocean flash their dreadful rays:

White clouds on clouds inroll'd the smoke ascends,

The bursting tumult heaven's wide concave rends:

The bays and caverns of the winding shore

Repeat the cannon's and the mortar's roar:

The bombs, far-flaming, hiss along the sky,

And, whirring through the air, the bullets fly;

The wounded air, with hollow deafen'd sound,

Groans to the direful strife, and trembles round._

_Now from the Moorish town the sheets of fire,

Wide blaze succeeding blaze, to heaven aspire.

Black rise the clouds of smoke, and by the gales

Borne down, in streams hang hov'ring o'er the vales;

And slowly floating round the mountain's head

Their pitchy mantle o'er the landscape spread.

Unnumber'd sea-fowl rising from the shore,

Beat round in whirls at every cannon's roar;

Where o'er the smoke the masts' tall heads appear,

Hov'ring they scream, then dart with sudden fear;

On trembling wings far round and round they fly,

And fill with dismal clang their native sky.

Thus fled in rout confus'd the treach'rous Moors

From field to field_,[111] then, hast'ning to the shores,

Some trust in boats their wealth and lives to save,

And, wild with dread, they plunge into the wave;

Some spread their arms to swim, and some beneath

The whelming billows, struggling, pant for breath,

Then whirl'd aloft their nostrils spout the brine;

While show'ring still from many a carabine

The leaden hail their sails and vessels tore,

Till, struggling hard, they reach'd the neighb'ring shore:

Due vengeance thus their perfidy repaid,

And GAMA'S terrors to the East display'd.

Imbrown'd with dust a beaten pathway shows

Where 'midst umbrageous palms the fountain flows;

From thence, at will, they bear the liquid health;

And now, sole masters of the island's wealth,

With costly spoils and eastern robes adorn'd,

The joyful victors to the fleet return'd.

With hell's keen fires still for revenge athirst

The regent burns, and weens, by fraud accurst,

To strike a surer yet a secret blow,

And in one general death to whelm the foe.

The promis'd pilot to the fleet he sends

And deep repentance for his crime pretends.

Sincere the herald seems, and while he speaks,

The winning tears steal down his hoary cheeks.

Brave GAMA, touch'd with gen'rous woe, believes,

And from his hand the pilot's hand receives:

A dreadful gift! instructed to decoy,

In gulfs to whelm them, or on rocks destroy.

The valiant chief, impatient of delay,

For India now resumes the wat'ry way;

Bids weigh the anchor and unfurl the sail,

Spread full the canvas to the rising gale.

He spoke: and proudly o'er the foaming tide,

Borne on the wind, the full-wing'd vessels ride;

While as they rode before the bounding prows

The lovely forms of sea-born nymphs arose.

The while brave VASCO'S unsuspecting mind

Yet fear'd not ought the crafty Moor design'd:

Much of the coast he asks, and much demands

Of Afric's shores and India's spicy lands.

The crafty Moor by vengeful Bacchus taught

Employ'd on deadly guile his baneful thought;

In his dark mind he plann'd, on GAMA'S head

Full to revenge Mozambique and the dead.

Yet all the chief demanded he reveal'd,

Nor aught of truth, that truth he knew, conceal'

For thus he ween'd to gain his easy faith,

And gain'd, betray to slavery or death.

And now, securely trusting to destroy,

As erst false Sinon[112] snar'd the sons of Troy,

"Behold, disclosing from the sky," he cries,

"Far to the north, yon cloud-like isle arise:

From ancient times the natives of the shore

The blood-stain'd image on the cross adore."

Swift at the word, the joyful GAMA cried:

"For that fair island turn the helm aside;

O bring my vessels where the Christians dwell,

And thy glad lips my gratitude shall tell."

With sullen joy the treach'rous Moor complied,

And for that island turn'd the helm aside.

For well Quiloa's[113] swarthy race he knew,

Their laws and faith to Hagar's offspring true;

Their strength in war, through all the nations round,

Above Mozambique and her powers renown'd;

He knew what hate the Christian name they bore,

And hop'd that hate on VASCO'S bands to pour.

Right to the land the faithless pilot steers,

Right to the land the glad Armada bears;

But heavenly Love's fair queen,[114] whose watchful care

Had ever been their guide, beheld the snare.

A sudden storm she rais'd: loud howl'd the blast,

The yard-arms rattled, and each groaning mast

Bended beneath the weight. Deep sunk the prows,

And creaking ropes the creaking ropes oppose;

In vain the pilot would the speed restrain,

The captain shouts, the sailors toil in vain;

Aslope and gliding on the leeward side,

The bounding vessels cut the roaring tide:

Soon far they pass'd; and now the slacken'd sail

Trembles and bellies to the gentle gale:

Now many a league before the tempest toss'd

The treach'rous pilot sees his purpose cross'd:

Yet vengeful still, and still intent on guile,

Behold, he cries, yon dim emerging isle:

There live the votaries of Messiah's lore

In faithful peace, and friendship with the Moor.

Yet all was false, for there Messiah's name,

Reviled and scorn'd, was only known by fame.

The grovelling natives there, a brutal herd,

The sensual lore of Hagar's son[115] preferr'd.

With joy brave GAMA hears the artful tale,

Bears to the harbour, and bids furl the sail.

Yet, watchful still, fair Love's celestial queen

Prevents the danger with a hand unseen;

Now past the bar his vent'rous vessel guides,

And safe at anchor in the road he rides.

Between the isle and Ethiopia's land

A narrow current laves each adverse strand;

Close by the margin where the green tide flows,

Full to the bay a lordly city rose;

With fervid blaze the glowing evening pours

Its purple splendours o'er the lofty towers;

The lofty towers with milder lustre gleam,

And gently tremble in the glassy stream.

Here reign'd a hoary king of ancient fame;

Mombas the town, Mombas the island's name.

As when the pilgrim, who with weary pace

Thro' lonely wastes untrod by human race,

For many a day disconsolate has stray'd,

The turf his bed, the wild-wood boughs his shade,

O'erjoy'd beholds the cheerful seats of men

In grateful prospect rising on his ken:

So GAMA joy'd, who many a dreary day

Had traced the vast, the lonesome, wat'ry way,

Had seen new stars, unknown to Europe, rise,

And brav'd the horrors of the polar skies:

So joy'd his bounding heart when, proudly rear'd,

The splendid city o'er the wave appear'd,

Where Heaven's own lore, he trusted, was obey'd,

And Holy Faith her sacred rites display'd.

And now, swift crowding through the hornèd bay,

The Moorish barges wing'd their foamy way,

To GAMA'S fleet with friendly smiles they bore

The choicest products of their cultur'd shore.

But there fell rancour veil'd its serpent-head,

Though festive roses o'er the gifts were spread.

For Bacchus, veil'd in human shape, was here,

And pour'd his counsel in the sov'reign's ear.

O piteous lot of man's uncertain state!

What woes on Life's unhappy journey wait!

When joyful Hope would grasp its fond desire,

The long-sought transports in the grasp expire.

By sea what treach'rous calms, what rushing storms,

And death attendant in a thousand forms!

By land what strife, what plots of secret guile,

How many a wound from many a treach'rous smile!

Oh where shall man escape his num'rous foes,

And rest his weary head in safe repose!

END OF BOOK I.