Inscriptions left, In/ Ear/// European Navigators. 9 



All the people left on her (one hundred and fifty) perished, but one 

 hundred of them were ashore at the time of the gale. They eventu- 

 ally built two boats with the debris of the vessel, one of which set sail 

 for Mozambique, where it arrived safely ; the other reached the Cape 

 (Table Bay), and sighting there the Sdo Ignacio de Loyola, of the fleet 

 of 1630, were taken on board, but this vessel perished upon the bar 

 of Lisbon. 



Such is the abbreviated history of the three Portuguese relics 

 in the Museum. 



FRENCH, ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND DANISH INSCRIPTIONS. 



After de Gama's discovery, Cabral, da Cunha, Albuquerque, 

 Almeida, Sequeira, and other explorers, all Portuguese, visited the 

 eastern seas and the Islands of Spices via the Cape. The Spaniards, 

 by now a powerful maritime nation, did not follow on their track, 

 because the Pope had arbitrated on the respective sphere of both 

 Portugal and Spain. The ventures were very lucrative, as proved by 

 the number of ships sent from Portugal : 507 from the year 1500 to 

 1550, and 264, of much larger tonnage, from 1550 to 1560. 



But a few years only after da Gama had opened the road to India 

 other nations are found to have entered this newly discovered field. 



Privateers or merchantmen, or both together, began to operate in 

 the Mozambique Channel and other regions, and these were French. 



In 1508 Queimado, commander of one of the ships of Tristan 

 da Cunha's fleet, was captured by Frenchmen in the Mozambique 

 Channel. In 1560 Captain Bondard, from La Rochelle, was hanged 

 at Mozambique for plundering Portuguese caravells in the Indian 

 Ocean." 



Of three French privateers that sailed from Dieppe in 1526, one is 

 known to have stopped at Madagascar, and to have done some trading 

 there. 



So that it is inexact to say that during the period 1500 to 1560 no 

 European flag, other than the Portuguese, was seen in the Eastern 

 seas. But their expeditions did, after a time, sail from the island of 

 St. Helena without touching at Table Bay, and therefore left no 

 inscriptions there. 



FRENCH INSCRIPTION. 



Stone III. 



On one stone is a French inscription with the date un- 

 fortunately mutilated. This piece of rock has been badly used; 



* The Portuguese claiming a monopoly of their discoveries under a Papal Bull, 

 the operations of any competitor were considered by them to be piratical. 



