with spices, yielded a greater sum than the whole outfit of the
fleet Columbus commanded on his first voyage!

In an incredibly short time, thirteen ships were fitted out, and under
that prince of navigators, Cabral, set sail to secure the results of
Gama's discovery. On him, too, fortune smiled as it rarely has on them
that "go down to the sea in ships." Blown out of his course by
head-winds, his very mishaps ripened into the rarest fortune, for he
discovered Brazil, and thus added to his master's realm what was
destined to be one of the richest kingdoms of the world. With the
instinct of genius, and a courage as rare as it was heroic, he did not
return to notify his king of the new continent which had risen out of
the deep before him, but sending back a single caravel with the
marvellous news, he turned his battered prows to that point of the
compass where he judged the Cape of Good Hope to be, and after passing
three thousand miles of water that had never known a keel before, he
rounded the southern point of Africa and proceeded to carry out his
orders. He lacked, however, the soldierly qualities and administrative
power of the "Discoverer of India," who the year after his return was
sent out to complete his work. This time he had a fleet of twenty sail,
and from the outset was bent not only on taking permanent possession of
the countries whose trade it was desirable to secure, but on avenging
the affront that had before been offered him by the Zamorin of Calicut
and the Arab traders who had inspired the action.

On his way he founded the colonies of Mozambique and Sofala, and sailed
to Travancore. During the passage he fell in with a ship which was
carrying many Indian Mussulmans to Mecca, laden with rich presents for
the shrine of the Prophet. This he pillaged and burned, with all of her
300 passengers except twenty women and children, whom he saved more for
his own pleasure, no doubt, than from any pity for them. He excused this
act of savagery, so far as any excuse was necessary, on the ground that
they were paynim Moors, and some among them had incited the attack upon
him at Calicut on his former voyage. The truth is they were rich; he
wanted the plunder; and there was less likelihood of trouble if he
killed them than if they were left alive to publish and avenge their
losses. It was merely an application of the freebooter's maxim, that
"dead men tell no tales."

Arriving at Calicut, he found that forty Portug