At last, from the Arab port of Melindi, near Mombasa, he turned east and sailed straight away to India, where he anchored before Calicut, then the most important port of southern India, on May 20. Returning the next year with ships richly laden, he was received with public rejoicings and given high honors; and he greatly astonished his friends of the navy by telling them that the Arabs used the compass, sea-charts, quadrants, and “had divers maritime mysteries not short of the Portugals.” Da Gama lived many years, and sailed often to India and China after that; but chiefly on political expeditions, in which he disgraced his otherwise great name by inexcusable rapine and cruelty. Meanwhile some exploration had been done toward the far north, as we shall see in the next chapter; and so the fifteenth century ended, with Europe understood as far as Nova Zembla, Africa circumnavigated, and the coasts of India, Malaya, southern China, and the larger Malayan islands fairly familiar to geographers. This is much, and yet it leaves unmentioned the greatest fact of all—the work of that grand, sad character, Christopher Columbus, upon whose grave near Seville has been written: HE GAVE A NEW WORLD TO SPAIN. [Illustration: ENGRAVED BY E. H. DEL’ORME. THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. “There, beyond the Cape of Storms, Where the breaker’s voice of thunder Roars when ships are rent asunder, Through a fog of ghostly forms “Men catch glimpses of the sail, Ages old, and rent and hoary, Of that quaint old ship of story, And cry, ‘Vanderdecken, hail!’”] [Illustration: THE ROCK IN THE SEA.] FOOTNOTES: [1] This is related by the Greek historian Herodotus, and has often been denied, especially by the older writers; but the “Encyclopædia Britannica” gives it credence, and tells us that the latest and best critic of the geography of Herodotus, Major Rennel, maintains the possibility of such a voyage, and believes it was made. He argues that the construction of their ships, with flat bottoms and low masts, enabled these hardy voyagers to keep close to the land, and to enter all the rivers and harbors for food and water. I think, therefore, that we may believe that Herodotus recorded what really happened, even if we reject some details. [2] This is not a Norse, but an Irish name, familiar to us as _Barney_. CHAPTER IV (_Continued_) EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS PART II—FROM COLUMBUS TO COOK