This may seem a high rate, but it is by no means an exceptional one. Vasco himself made at least 114 miles daily during his passage from Lisbon to the Cape Verdes, and 125 between the Cape and the Guinea coast when homeward bound. Columbus, during his first voyage, averaged 84 miles[434] daily between Gomera and Guanahani, but on nine days his daily run exceeded 150 miles, and on one day—the 4th of September—he actually covered 210 miles, although he had to take into account the bad sailing qualities of one of his vessels, the _Niña_. We have laid down Vasco da Gama’s hypothetical track with a considerable amount of diffidence. The passage might, of course, have been effected in various other ways.[435] When Cabral started for India in 1500 he was instructed by Vasco da Gama himself to sail southward from the Cape Verde Islands, until he should have reached the latitude of the Cape, and then to head to the east. Cabral, however, was carried by winds and currents towards Brazil, which he made in lat. 17° 20´ S., and thence followed a track which took him past Trinidad and Fernão Vaz,[436] and does not differ much from that now recommended to sailing vessels. João da Nova, who left for India in March 1501, did not follow the route of his predecessor, perhaps on account of the terrible disaster which overtook Cabral when in the vicinity of Tristão da Cunha. Nova seems to have attempted a direct passage; for following perhaps the eastern route recommended to a later generation by Laurie’s _Sailing Directory for the Ethiopic Ocean_ (4th edition, by A. G. Finlay, p. 74), he discovered the island of Ascension on the outward voyage, and is generally credited with having reached the Cape without coming within sight of the coast of Brazil.[437] Vasco da Gama, during his second voyage in 1502, seems to have seen no land from the time he left Cape Verde until he arrived at Sofala, that is, during ninety-nine days, viz., from March 7th to June 14th: a remarkably quick passage. He seems on that occasion to have given the Cape of Good Hope a wide berth. His nephew, Estevão da Gama, who left Lisbon on April 1st, took the western route. He passed the Cape Verde Islands on April 15th, Trinidad,[438] in the Southern Atlantic, on May 18th, doubled the Cape about the beginning of June, and first made land, on July 11th, at the Cabo Primeiro, on the coast of Natal, one hundred and two days after his departure from Lisbon.