his proposal. When he arrived in
the West Indies he thought he had found the Ophir of Solomon, and thence
these islands received their general name, and on his return he told
John II. that he had been at the islands of India. To find the Spice
Islands of the East was his proposal at the court of Spain; and even on
his fourth and last voyage in 1502, three years after Gama's return, he
promised the King of Spain to find India by a westward passage. But
though great discoveries rewarded his toils, his first and last purpose
he never completed. It was reserved for Magalhaens to discover the
westward route to the Eastern world.

Gomara and other Spanish writers relate, that while Columbus lived in
Madeira, a pilot, the only survivor of a ship's crew, died at his house.
This pilot, they say, had been driven to the West Indies, or America, by
tempest, and on his death-bed communicated the journal of his voyage to
Columbus.

[53] Or Bethlehem, so named from the chapel.

[54] Now called St. Helen's.

[55] The voyage of Gama has been called merely a coasting one, and
therefore regarded as much less dangerous and heroical than that of
Columbus, or of Magalhaens. But this is one of the opinions hastily
taken up, and founded on ignorance. Columbus and Magalhaens undertook to
navigate unknown oceans, and so did Gama; with this difference, that the
ocean around the Cape of Good Hope, which Gama was to encounter, was
believed to be, and had been avoided by Diaz, as impassable. Prince
Henry suggested that the current of Cape Bojador might be avoided by
standing out to sea, and thus that Cape was first passed. Gama for this
reason did not coast, but stood out to sea for upwards of three months
of tempestuous weather. The tempests which afflicted Columbus and
Magalhaens are by their different historians described with
circumstances of less horror and danger than those which attacked Gama.
All the three commanders were endangered by mutiny; but none of their
crews, save Gama's, could urge the opinion of ages, and the example of a
living captain, that the dreadful ocean which they attempted was
impassable. Columbus and Magalhaens always found means, after detecting
a conspiracy, to keep the rest in hope; but Gama's men, when he put the
pilots in irons, continued in the utmost despair. Columbus was indeed
ill obeyed; Magalhaens sometimes little better; but nothing, save the
wonderful authority of Gama's command, could have led his crew