etely healed, the poet's friends intervened
to assist him, and it was arranged that on his formally imploring pardon
Borges should grant it and desist from proceeding with the case. This
was effected on the 13th of February 1553, and on the 7th of March the
king, taking into consideration that Camoens was "a youth and poor and
decided to serve this year in India", confirmed the pardon. He had been
obliged to humble his pride and enlist again, but while he complained of
his troubles he recognized, in his frank, honest way, that his own
mistakes were in part the causes of them.

After bidding good-bye to Catherina for the last time, Camoens set sail
on Palm Sunday, the 24th of March 1553, in the "S. Bento", the flagship
of a fleet of four vessels, under Fernao Alvares Cabral. His last words,
he says in a letter, were those of Scipio Africanus, "Ingrata patria,
non possidebis ossa mea".

He relates some of his experiences on board and the events of the voyage
in various sonnets in Elegy iii. and in the _Lusiads_. In those days the
sailors navigated the ships, while the men-at-arms kept the day and
night watches, helped in the cleaning and, in case of necessity, at the
pumps, but the rank of Camoens doubtless saved him from manual work. He
had much time to himself in his six months' voyage and was able to lay
in a store of nautical knowledge, while tempestuous weather off the Cape
of Good Hope led him to conceive the dramatic episode of Adamastor
(_Lusiads_, canto 5). The "S. Bento", the best ship of the fleet,
weathered the Cape safely, and without touching at Mozambique, the
watering-place of ships bound for India, anchored at Goa in September.
It seems probable that the idea of the _Lusiads_ took further shape on
the voyage out, and that Camoens modified his plan; cantos 3 and 4 were
already written, but from an historical he now made it a maritime epic.
The discovery of India became the main theme, while the history of
Portugal was interlaced with it, and the poem ended with the espousals
between Portugal and the ocean, and a prophecy of the future greatness
of the fatherland.

At the time of his arrival Goa boasted 100,000 inhabitants, and with its
magnificent harbour was the commercial capital of the west of India. The
first viceroy had been content with a sea dominion, but the great
Affonso de Albuquerque saw that this was not enough to secure the
supremacy of the Portuguese; recognizing the strategic value of Goa,