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 between the Italian republics and the whole of the Malabar coast.

After a passage of twenty (or twenty-three) days, Vasco de Gama first sighted the high land of India, at a distance of about eight leagues from the coast of Cananore. The news of the strange arrival spread with great rapidity, and the soothsayers and diviners were consulted, the natives having a legend, "that the whole of India would be taken and ruled over by a distant king, who had white people, who would do great harm to those who were not their friends;" —a prophecy which has been remarkably fulfilled, not merely by the Portuguese, but more especially as regards the government of India by the English people. The soothsayers, however, added that the time had not yet arrived for the realisation of the prophecy.

On the arrival of the expedition at Calicut, multitudes of people flocked to the beach, and the Portuguese were at first well received; for the king, having ascertained the real wealth of the strangers, and that Vasco de Gama had gold, and silver, and rich merchandise on board, to exchange for the pepper, spices, and other produce of the East, immediately sent him presents of "many figs, fowls, and cocoa-nuts, fresh and dry," and professed a desire to enter into relations with the "great Christian king," whom he represented. Calicut, the capital of the Malabar district, was then one of the chief mercantile cities of India, having for centuries carried on an extensive