In 1496 he had many councils on this affair, and in consequence of the resolutions arrived at he agreed (_assentou_) to despatch on this enterprise one Vasco da Gama, and forthwith arranged for the fleet to be sent, the work upon which was carried on with such expedition that rigging and all was ready by Saturday, July 8th, 1496. The fleet (_armada_) only included three ships of from 100 to 320 tons, and there went in them, between sailors and soldiers, 260 persons. In addition there was a ship carrying provisions. The flag-ship, in which Vasco da Gama, the captain-major, embarked, was called the _São Gabriel_, and Pero de Alemquer was the pilot. The second ship was called the _São Raphael_; Paulo da Gama, the brother of said Vasco, was captain, and João de Coimbra, pilot. The third vessel was called the _Berrio_; Nicolao Coelho was her captain and P^o. Escolar her pilot. Gonsalo Nunes, a retainer (_criado_) of Vasco da Gama, was captain of the cargo-ship (_nao_); only provisions went in her. These, as also the crew, having been transferred to the other ships at the Cape of Good Hope, they set fire to her. They set sail from the bar of Lisbon on July 8th, 1497, arrived at Moçambique on March 1st, 1498, made Mombasa on Palm Sunday, the 7th of April,[390] and Melinde on the 15th of the same month. There he took pilots to guide him to India, and on May 16th of the same year, ’498,[391] he made the land at a port on the coast of Mallavar (Malabar), in the kingdom of the Samorim, two leagues below Callecut, which is the principal city and capital of that kingdom. There he remained seventy-four days, in the course of which, induced thereto by the Moors who live in that country, he practised upon us a thousand deceits. But having discovered that for the sake of which he had been sent, namely, India, of which he was able to take home such good intelligence, he determined to return to Portugal, and set sail on August 29th of this same year, namely, ’498. At the Anjediva islands he careened the ships and took in water, and there he took a Jew who, by order of Sabayo, the King of Goa, had visited him, it being the intention, immediately after the return of this Jew, to send a fleet against him (Vasco da Gama). Vasco da Gama departed thence and made the coast of Melinde. Wishing to depart thence for this kingdom, the ship _São Raphael_, in which was his brother, was lost on the same shoals on which she had already once grounded on the way out to India. The loss of this ship did not give much concern to Vasco da Gama, for he was short of men, and those in her were distributed among the two other vessels. He passed Moçambique, doubled the Cape of Good Hope on March 20th, 1499; when near the Cape Verde Islands a severe storm separated the two vessels, namely, that in which he (Vasco) was from her consort in which was Nicolau Coelho, who, leading, lost sight of Vasco da Gama, and reached the bar of Lisbon[392] on July 10th of said year.