The lower deck was divided by bulkheads into three compartments, two of which were set apart for provisions, presents, and articles of barter. The “provisions”, according to Castanheda, were calculated to suffice for three years, and the daily rations were on a liberal scale, consisting of 1½ pounds of biscuit, 1 pound of beef or half a pound of pork, 2½ pints of water, 1¼ pints of wine, one-third of a gill of vinegar, and half that quantity of oil. On fast days, half a pound of rice, of codfish, or cheese was substituted for the meat. There were, in addition, flour, lentils, sardines, plums, almonds, onions, garlic, mustard, salt, sugar and honey. These ships’ stores were supplemented by fish, caught whenever an opportunity offered, and by fresh provisions obtained when in port, among which were oranges, which proved most acceptable to the many men suffering from scurvy. The merchandise was not only insufficient in quantity, but proved altogether unsuited to the Indian market. It seems to have included _lambel_ (striped cotton stuff), sugar, olive-oil, honey, and coral beads. Among the objects intended for presents, there were wash-hand basins, scarlet hoods, silk jackets, pantaloons, hats, Moorish caps; besides such trifles as glass beads, little round bells, tin rings and bracelets, which were well enough suited for barter on the Guinea coast, but were not appreciated by the wealthy merchants of Calecut. Of ready money there seems to have been little to spare. All this is made evident by the letters of D. Manuel and Signor Sernigi. The scientific outfit of the expedition, it may safely be presumed, was the best to be procured at the time. The learned D. Diogo Ortiz de Vilhegas[412] furnished Da Gama with maps and books, including, almost as a matter of course, a copy of Ptolemy, and copies of the information on the East collected at Lisbon for years past. Among these reports, that sent home by Pero de Covilhão found, no doubt, a place,[413] as also the information furnished by Lucas Marcos,[414] an Abyssinian priest who visited Lisbon about 1490. The astronomical instruments were provided by Zacut, the astronomer, and it is even stated that Vasco enjoyed the advantage of being trained as a practical observer by that learned Hebrew. These instruments included a large wooden astrolabe, smaller astrolabes of metal, and, in all probability, also quadrants; and they were accompanied by a copy of Zacut’s _Almanach perpetuum Celestium motuum cujus radix est 1473_, a translation of which, by José Vizinho, had been printed at Leiria in 1496.[415] These tables enabled the navigator to calculate his latitudes by observing the altitude of the sun.