Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/249

CHAPTER VI THE PORTUGUESE NAVIGATOR VASCO DA GAMA AT CALICUT AND HIS RECEPTION BY THE ZAMORIN 1498 A. D. voyage which the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama made to India at the close of the fifteenth century has frequently been mentioned in the preceding volumes, especially in the sixth; a brief selection from the contemporary accounts of it may therefore be wel- comed here. This celebrated voyager, whom King Man- uel of Portugal commissioned with the command of a Portuguese fleet for an expedition to the East, set sail from Lisbon in the summer of 1497, and after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, arrived on May 20, 1498, at Calicut in Malabar, on the southeast coast of India. Through the favour of the Zamorin, or native ruler of the place, he was able to establish, between the Indian states and his own country, a series of friendly relations for trade and commerce, which proved of the greatest importance to Portugal. His first visit to the city of Calicut and his reception at the Zamorin 's court are well described in the " Roteiro," a journal of Vasco da Gama's voyage written by a member of the expedition, although the precise authorship of this Portuguese 205