The King of Calicut was at this time at a distance of forty-five miles from his capital, so the Capitam mõr despatched two men to announce the arrival of an ambassador from the King of Portugal, being the bearer of letters to him from his sovereign. The king at once sent a pilot, with orders to take the Portuguese ships into the safer roadstead of Pandarany, and promised to return himself on the morrow to Calicut; this he did, and ordered his Intendant or Catoual to invite Gama to land and open negotiations. In spite of the supplications of his brother, Paul da Gama, who represented to him the dangers which he might incur, and those to which his death would expose the expedition, the Capitam mõr set out for the shore, upon which an enormous crowd of people were awaiting him.
The idea that
