their boats, and the standard went in that of Paulo da Gama.  Then, taking leave of the gentlemen, they went to the ships, and on their arrival they fired all their artillery, and the ships were dressed out gayly with standards and flags and many ornaments, and the royal standard was at once placed at the top of the mast of Paulo da Gama; for so Vasco da Gama commanded.  Discharging all their artillery, they loosened the sails, and went beating to windward on the river of Lisbon, tacking until they came to anchor at Belen, where they remained three days waiting for a wind to go out.

There they made a muster of the crews, and the King was there all the time in the monastery, where all confessed and communicated.  The King commanded that they should write down in a book all the men of each ship by name, with the names of their fathers, mothers, and wives of the married men, and the places of which they were native; and the King ordered that this book should be preserved in the House of the Mines, in order that the payments which were due should be made upon their return.  The King also ordered that a hundred crusadoes should be paid to each of the married men for them to leave it to their wives, and forty crusadoes to each of the single men, for them to fit themselves out with certain things; for, as to provisions, they had not got to lay them in, for the ships were full of them.  To the two brothers was paid a gratification of two thousand crusadoes to each of them, and a thousand to Nicolas Coelho.

When it was the day of our Lady of March (the 25, 1497), all heard mass; they then embarked, and loosened the sails, and went forth from the river, the King coming out to accompany them in his boat, and addressing them all with blessings and good wishes.  When he took leave of them, his boat lay on its oars until they disappeared, as is shown in the painting of his city of Lisbon.  Vasco da Gama went in the ship Sao Rafael, and Paulo da Gama in the Sao Gabriel, and Nicolas Coelho in the other ship, Sao Miguel.  In each ship there were as many as eighty men, officers and seamen, and the others of the leader’s family, servants and relations, all filled with the desire to undertake the labor that was fitting for each, and with great trust in the favors which they hoped for from the King on their return to Portugal.

Paulo da Gama, as he went out with the Lisbon river, hauled down the royal standard from the masthead; but at the great supplications of his brother, who gave him good reasons why it was fitting that he should carry it, he again hoisted it.  The two companions, standing out to sea, as I have said, made their way toward Cape Verd, and for that purpose they stood well out to sea to make the coast, which they knew they would find, as it advanced much to seaward, as they learned from the sailors who had been in the caravels of Janinfante.  They ran as far as they could to sea in the direction of the wind, to double the land without difficulty; and thus they navigated until they made the coast, and, having reconnoitred it, they tacked and stood out to sea, hauling on the bowline as much as they could, as so they ran for many days.