The
completed circling of Africa by European adventurers was a no less
memorable achievement of Da Gama. He touched at Mozambique on the first
of March, 1498, and there saw gold, in the hands of Arabs, that had
passed up the coast from Sofala. Nearly twenty years before, a
Portuguese courtier, Pedro de Covilhao, had reached Sofala in an
attempt to pass to India by way of Egypt.2
For
many years and possibly for many centuries there had been a trickle of
gold from Sofala through Arab traders, and Da Gama saw enough of it to
move his king to lay his hands upon it. In the expedition of Cabral,
which followed in the wake of Da Gama in 1500, the great captain,
Bartholemeu
1 " Prince Henry the Navigator," C. Raymond Beazley.
2
"The Portuguese in South Africa," George McCall Theal. " South Africa
from Arab Domination to British Rule," R. W. Murray, editor, London,
1891.
