Note 378 — BOOK V.

It had been extremely impolitic in Gama to mention the mutiny of his followers to the King of Melinda. The boast of their loyalty, besides, has a good effect in the poem, as it elevates the heroes, and gives uniformity to the character of bravery, which the dignity of the epopea required to be ascribed to them. History relates the matter differently. In standing for the Cape of Good Hope, Gama gave the highest proofs of his resolution. The fleet seemed now tossed to the clouds, ut modo nubes contingere, and now sunk to the lowest whirlpools of the abyss. The winds were insufferably cold, and, to the rage of the tempest was added the horror of an almost continual darkness. The crew expected every moment to be swallowed up in the deep. At every interval of the storm, they came round Gama, asserting the impossibility to proceed further, and imploring him to return. This he resolutely refused. A conspiracy against his life was formed, but was discovered by his brother. He guarded against it with the greatest courage and prudence; put all the pilots in chains, and he himself, with some others, took the management of the helms. At last, after having many days withstood the tempest, and a perfidious conspiracy, invicto animo, with an unconquered mind, a favourable change of weather revived the spirits of the fleet, and allowed them to double the Cape of Good Hope.—Extr. from Osorius's Historia.