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CAPITOLO XIX.
    Henry VII (1485-1509) sent two daring’ Italians, John Caboto and his son Sebastian, in June 1497, in search of a northern course to the coveted country, but instead of touching Asia, John landed at Labrador, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in the same year 1497, which he found inhabited by Esquimaux and other aborigines; his son Sebastian discovered at the same time Canada; consequently these two navigators touched the American continent about a year before Columbus; but both the Cabotos were disappointed at not finding in those northern regions the riches they expected. Twenty years afterwards Sebastian Caboto discovered the Strait and the Bay now bearing the name of Hudson, and from 1526 to 1530 he explored the eastern coasts of South America as fur as the Strait of Magellan. This great Italian navigator died in 1557 in London.
    Emmanuel I or the Great (1495-1521), king of Portugal, sent Vasco da Gama, born 1469 at Sines in the province of Estremadura, with four ships to double the Cape of Good Hope and to find from thence the route to India. Vasco left his country on the 8th of September 1497, sailed round the point, most south of Africa, steered along the eastern coast of this continent and reached an unknown town, Melinda in Mozambique. The black king of this place received the Portuguese cordially and gave skilled mariners to Vasco; this enabled his fleet to sail straight to Calicut with which Melinda had commercial intercourse.
    After twenty three days, vis. on the 18th May 1498, the Portuguese landed at this Indian town, where they saw the luxuries they had for so long a time so ardently desired. Vasco found the Indians a civilized people, forward in manufactures and very enterprising; he heard that they, as well as the Arabs, carried on a regular commerce by land and water with other parts of India, China and the places along the eastern coasts of Africa as far as the Cape of Good