Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/110

 68 THE QUEST FOE INDIA BY SEA 1493; and the afflicted monarch struggled through a renewal of his illness only to find his kingdom devas- tated by famine in 1494, and to die in October, 1495. His successor, Emmanuel the Fortunate, at once re- vived the long-suspended plan of Indian discovery. In 1496 preparations were made on a scale never before attempted, and in July, 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed from the little chapel on the Tagus, which Prince Henry had built for administering the sacrament to outward- bound and home-returning mariners. In the preceding month of May, 1497, John Cabot embarked from the Severn with a crew of eighteen men to seek for India westwards across the Atlantic. On June 24th, or exactly a fortnight before Da Gama left Lisbon, Cabot discovered North America for Eng- land instead. Da Gama's squadron, insignificant as it may appear to modern seamen, marked a century of progress since Prince Henry's day of small things. Even as late as 1486 Bartholemeu Dias went forth to round the Cape of Good Hope with only two ships of fifty tons each and a provision tender. Da Gama's fleet in 1497 con- sisted of the San Gabriel of 120 tons carrying his own flag, the San Raphael of one hundred tons commanded by his brother, a caravel of fifty tons, and a smaller craft laden with munitions. Nor was the improvement in their equipment less striking. Considerable diffi- culties exist in tracing the early development of the rig of ships. But Columbus enumerates all his sails on October 24, 1492 a fair supply; and drawings exist,