22 
SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
mischief. The Portuguese, returning to their 
ships, fired two pieces of ordnance, "which," 
says the old chronicler, u so much affrighted 
the savages, that they dropped their weapons 
and disappeared." 
On the 11th of January, in the next year, 
but during the same yoyage, Vasco de Gama, 
touched on this coast again, much further to 
the Eastward, near the Mozambique Channel ; 
and then, standing away to the Northward and 
Eastward, he had his perseverance and skill 
ultimately rewarded by the discovery of the 
coast of Malabar and India. 
After the discovery of the Cape, the Portu- 
guese fleets continued for several years to resort 
to the various bays in the present Colony, for 
the purposes of refreshment. They do not, how- 
ever, appear to have ever taken possession of 
any part of the territory for the purpose of a 
Settlement. At length, their ships and merchants 
were chased from the Eastern Seas and their 
Indian empire, by their zealous rivals, and 
indefatigable enemies, the Dutch. 
On one occasion only, during this period of 
the Cape history, do we find it recorded as the 
scene of any eventful incidents. The one alluded 
to, is that, when Francisco d' Almeida, first 
Portuguese viceroy of India, was shot by the 
natives with a poisoned arrow, and, at the same 
