[Sidenote: De Gama's successful voyage. He reaches India.] A voyage to the south is even more full of portents than one to the west. The accustomed heavens seem to sink away, and new stars are nightly approached. Vasco de Gama set sail July 9, 1497, with three ships and 160 men, having with him the Arab map. King John had employed his Jewish physicians, Roderigo and Joseph, to devise what help they could from the stars. They applied the astrolabe to marine use, and constructed tables. These were the same doctors who had told him that Columbus would certainly succeed in reaching India, and advised him to send out a secret expedition in anticipation, which was actually done, though it failed through want of resolution in its captain. Encountering the usual difficulties, tempestuous weather, and a mutinous crew, who conspired to put him to death, De Gama succeeded, November 20, in doubling the Cape. On March 1st he met seven small Arab vessels, and was surprised to find that they used the compass, quadrants, sea-charts, and "had divers maritime mysteries not short of the Portugals." With joy he soon after recovered sight of the northern stars, so long unseen. He now bore away to the north-east, and on May 19, 1498, reached Calicut, on the Malabar coast. [Sidenote: A commercial revolution the result.] The consequences of this voyage were to the last degree important. The commercial arrangements of Europe were completely dislocated; Venice was deprived of her mercantile supremacy; the hatred of Genoa was gratified; prosperity left the Italian towns; Egypt, hitherto supposed to possess a pre-eminent advantage as offering the best avenue to India, suddenly lost her position; the commercial monopolies so long in the hands of the European Jews were broken down. The discovery of America and passage of the Cape were the first steps of that prodigious maritime development soon exhibited by Western Europe. And since commercial prosperity is forthwith followed by the production of men and concentration of wealth, and moreover implies an energetic intellectual condition, it appeared before long that the three centres of population, of wealth, of intellect were shifting westwardly. The front of Europe was suddenly changed; the British islands, hitherto in a sequestered and eccentric position, were all at once put in the van of the new movement. * * * * *