Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/68

58 obtained from Indian merchants met with at this port, Gama arrived at Calicut, on the Malabar coast, on the 20th May , and set up, according to the custom of his country, a marble pillar as a mark of conquest and a proof of his dis- covery of India. His reception by the zamorin, or ruler of Calicut, would have in all probability been favourable enough, had it not been for the jealousy of the Moorish traders who, fearing for their gains, so incited the Hindus against the new comers that Gama, after escaping from enforced detention on shore, was obliged to ﬁght his way out of the harbour. Having seen enough to assure him of the great resources of this new country, he returned home in September with a glowing description of it. The king received him with every mark of distinction, created him a noble, and ordered magniﬁcent fetes to be held in his honour in the principal towns of the king— dom, “for he had brought back (not without severe loss in ships and in men) the solution of a great problem, which was destined to raise his country to the acme of prosperity.” In prosecution of Gama’s discoveries another ﬂeet of 13 ships was immediately sent out to India by Manoel, under Alvarez Cabral, who, in sailing too far west- ward, by accident discovered Brazil, and on reaching his destination established a factory at Calicut. The natives, again instigated by the Moorish merchants, rose up in arms, and murdered all whom Cabral had left behind. To avenge this outrage a p )werful armament of ten ships was ﬁtted out at Lisbon, the command of which was at ﬁrst given to Cabral, but was afterwards transferre] to Gama on his urgent petition ; for, “ Sire,” he said, “the king of Calicut arrested me and treated me with contumely, and because I did not return to avenge myself of that injury he has again committed a greater one, on which account I feel in my heart a great desire and inclination to go and make great havoc of him.” In the beginning of the ﬂeet sailed, and on reaching Calicut Gama immediately bombarded the town, enacting deeds of inhumanity and savagery too horrible to detail, and equalled only by the tortures of the Inquisition. Gama was naturally “ very disdainful, ready to anger, and very rash ;” but no peculiarities of disposi- tion—nothing whatever—can excuse such acts as his, which have justly left a stain on his character that neither time nor the brightness of his fame as a navigator can in the slightest degree obliterate. From Calicut he proceeded in November to Cochin, “doing all the harm he could on the way to all that he found at sea,” and having made favourable trading terms with it and with other towns on the coast, he returned to Lisbon in September , with richly laden ships. He and his captains were welcomed with great rejoicings ; “ but to Dom Vasco the king gave great favours, and all his goods free and exempt ; he granted him the anchorage dues of India, made him admiial of its seas for ever, and one of the principal men of his kingdom.” Soon afterhis return Yasco retired to his residence in Evora, and for twenty years took no part in public affairs, either from pique at not obtaining. as is supposed by some, so high rewards as he expected, or because he had in some way offended Manoel. During this time the Portuguese con- quests increased in the East, and were presided over by successive viceroys. The ﬁfth of these was so unfortunate that Gama was recalled from his seclusion by Manoel’s suc- cessor, Joao III., created count of Vidigneira, and nominated Viceroy of India, an honour which in April he left Lisbon to ﬁll. Arriving at Goa in September of the same year, he immediately set himself to correct, with vigour and ﬁrmness, the many abuses and evil practices which had crept in under the rule of his predeceSsors. lie was not destined, however, to prosecute far the reforms he had inaugurated, for, on the Christmas-eve following his arrival he died, while at Cochin, after a short illness, and was buried in the Franciscan monastery there. In his body was conveyed to Portugal and entombed in the town of \‘idigueira, of which he was count, with all the pomp and honour due to one who had been the lung’s representative. The important discoveries of Vasco da Gama had the immediate result of enriching Portugal, and raising her to one of the foremost places among the nations of Europe, and by degrees the far greater one of hastening the colonization and civilization of the East by opening its commerce to the great Western powers.

1em  GAMALIEL ([Hebrew], i.e. God is a rewarder, TanaALﬁA), a Hebrew proper name, which occurs more than once in the Old Testament (Numb. i. 10; ii. 20), is repeatedly met with in the history of later Judaism. Of the persons designated by it the most important are enumerated below:—

1., or llabban Gamliel the elder, as he is invariably called in the Talmud to distinguish him from his grandson, ltabban Gamaliel or Gamliel of Jabneh (Jamnia), was the son of Iiabbi Simeon, and the grandson of Rabbi Ilillel. Of his biography little is known beyond the facts that,, he lived and taught in Jerusalem, where Saul of Tarsus was for some time his pupil ; and that he was a member of the Sanhedrim, which body he successfully counselled to moderation in their treatment of the followers of Jesus. If e appears to have died before the destruction of the city. The Talmucists speak of him as having enjoyed the conﬁdence of Cypros, the wife of Agrippa, and as having been president of the Sanhedrim during the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius; but the latter representation at least is cer- tainly unhistorical, as may be learned from the New Testa- ment and from Josephus, where it is invariably the high priest who presides over the council. Gamaliel the elder is also represented by Jewish tradition as having in some respects modiﬁed the provisions of the law with respect to divorce and marriages of widows, and as having made some new arrangements with regard to the calendar; but there is reason to believe that in this last statement he has been mistaken for Gamaliel of Jabneh. The fact that he is spoken of in the records of Judaism as having been the ﬁrst of the seven “ rabbans ” (rabban being a honorlﬁc form of the title rabbi) is of itself almost conclusive against the late and otherwise improbable Christian tradition to_ the effect that he ultimately became a Christian and received baptism at the hands of Peter and John (Ole-m. 18(20qu 1. 65; Photius, end. 171, p. 199). Compare Ewald, Gage/t. d. V. Is-r.,. vi. 256 sq.; Derenbourg, Hist. de Palestine, p. 239 sqq.; Schiirer, NTliclw Zeitgesc/i., p. 458.

2. of Jabneh ranks with his grandfather, Gamaliel the older, as one of the seven great rabbans of the Talmudists. His father also was named Simeon. On the death of Rabbi Johanan ben Zacai, Gamliel was chosen to succeed him as head of the famous school 