Note 129 — A JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF VASCO DA GAMA IN 1497-99.
Ernest Georg Ravenstein translation
We learn from this passage that the “king” referred to by the author was in reality the king’s son, who acted as regent. He may be supposed to be the Sheikh Wagerage (Wajeraj), who in 1515 wrote a letter to D. Manuel, in which he begged for permission to send annually one vessel to Goa and to Mozambique. He very humbly (or sarcastically?) addresses the king as the “fountain of the commerce of all cities and kingdoms, the most equitable of sovereigns, and the enricher of all people”; when, indeed, the Portuguese had crippled the trade of Malindi, which had received them with open arms. Another letter addressed to King Manuel was written by “Ali, King of Melinde”, in 1520. Was this “king” the son of Wajeraj, or of the “prince who visited Vasco da Gama on board his vessel”? F. João de’ Sousa, who publishes these letters (Documentos Arabicos, Lisbon, 1790, pp. 67, 123), with a few comments, only obscures the point, unless indeed Wajeraj the Sheikh and Ali the Prince be one and the same person.
Cabral met a Sheikh Omar, a brother of the King of Malindi, who was present at Malindi when Vasco da Gama touched at that place; as also a Sheikh Foteima, an uncle of the king (Barros, Dec. I, liv. 5, c. 3).
On the ungenerous treatment dealt to the King of Malindi, see D. F. d’Almeida’s letter of 1507 (Stanley’s Vasco da Gama, p. 125).