After so considerable an interval employed on the Discoveries in America, it may be proper to remark that the former Account of the Discovery of the maritime route to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and the commencement of the Portuguese Conquests in the East, as contained in the _Second_ Volume of this Work, Part II. Chap. VI. _Sections I. to IX_. pp. 292-505, comprises only a period of _nine_ years, from the setting out of _Vasco de Gama_ in July 1497, on his adventurous Voyage, by which he completed the discovery of the way by sea to India from Europe, projected by Prince Henry in 1412, _eighty-five_ years before. On that former occasion, following the narrative of Hernan Lopez de Castaneda, we brought down the Transactions of the Portuguese in India to the year 1505; including the almost incredible defence of Cochin by the intrepid Pacheco against the immensely more numerous forces of the Zamorin of Calicut; the relief of the chivalric besieged, by the arrival of Lope Suarez de Menezes in September 1505; and the voyage of Suarez back to Portugal in 1505, leaving Manuel Telez de Vasconcelles as captain-general of the Portuguese possessions in India. It has been formerly mentioned, Vol. II. p.500, note 5, that Castaneda names this person Lope Mendez de Vasconcelles, and that he is named Manuel Telez de Barreto by the editor of Astleys Collection, in which we now find that he had followed the author of the Portuguese Asia. The difference between these authorities is irreconcileable, but is quite immaterial to the English reader.--E. SECTION I. _Course of the Indian Trade before the Discovery of the Route by the Cape of Good Hope, with some account of the settlement of the Arabs on the East Coast of Africa_[66].