Nonetheless, the small quantities of spices and other trade goods brought back. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut.Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero’s welcome and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities.The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra.
Da Gama’s fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499.The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here.Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 14999. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama’s fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498.The navigator was received with traditional hospitality.The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve almasares, a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey – were trivial, and failed to impress.The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleets’s arrival. The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on.
Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India.There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi.The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498. In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons.Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island.For over three months the ships had sailed more than 10,000 kilometres.The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497.This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast.The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than around the equator. On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon.The breakthrough came soon after, when John II’s captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.In 1487, John II dispatched two spies,overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes.He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land.Under John II’s watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded.To break the monarch’s dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms.