eating to windward on
the river of Lisbon, tacking until they came to anchor at Belen, where
they remained three days waiting for a wind to go out.

There they made a muster of the crews, and the King was there all the
time in the monastery, where all confessed and communicated. The King
commanded that they should write down in a book all the men of each ship
by name, with the names of their fathers, mothers, and wives of the
married men, and the places of which they were native; and the King
ordered that this book should be preserved in the House of the Mines, in
order that the payments which were due should be made upon their return.
The King also ordered that a hundred _crusadoes_ should be paid to
each of the married men for them to leave it to their wives, and forty
crusadoes to each of the single men, for them to fit themselves out with
certain things; for, as to provisions, they had not got to lay them
in, for the ships were full of them. To the two brothers was paid a
gratification of two thousand crusadoes to each of them, and a thousand
to Nicolas Coelho.

When it was the day of our Lady of March (the 25, 1497), all heard mass;
they then embarked, and loosened the sails, and went forth from the
river, the King coming out to accompany them in his boat, and addressing
them all with blessings and good wishes. When he took leave of them, his
boat lay on its oars until they disappeared, as is shown in the painting
of his city of Lisbon. Vasco da Gama went in the ship Sao Rafael, and
Paulo da Gama in the Sao Gabriel, and Nicolas Coelho in the other ship,
Sao Miguel. In each ship there were as many as eighty men, officers and
seamen, and the others of the leader's family, servants and relations,
all filled with the desire to undertake the labor that was fitting for
each, and with great trust in the favors which they hoped for from the
King on their return to Portugal.

Paulo da Gama, as he went out with the Lisbon river, hauled down the
royal standard from the masthead; but at the great supplications of his
brother, who gave him good reasons why it was fitting that he should
carry it, he again hoisted it. The two companions, standing out to sea,
as I have said, made their way toward Cape Verd, and for that purpose
they stood well out to sea to make the coast, which they knew they would
find, as it advanced much to seaward, as they learned from the sailors
who had been in the caravels of Janinfante. They ran as far