Vasco da, the first European who reached India by doubling the Cape of Good Hope, was born at Sines, a small sea-port of Portugal. Of his early history so little has been recorded, that even the date of his birth is unknown. On attaining manhood, he found that the success of Columbus had given a powerful impulse to the spirit of maritime adventure. In 1487 Pedro Da Covilham had set out for India by way of Egypt and the Red Sea, accompanied by Alfonso de Payva. At Cairo the latter of these travellers separated from his companions, and went in quest of "Prester John," a Christian king who was reported to be then reigning in Abyssinia over a people in a high state of civilization. Covilham, prosecuting his voyage alone, reached Goa and Calicut, and satisfied himself of the importance of the whole country as a field of commercial enterprise. He also became convinced of the possibility of reaching India by the Cape of Good Hope, a route which he found to be quite familiar to the Indian and Arabian traders. In the same year in which Covilham had set out on his eastern voyage, Bartholomew Diaz had returned to Lisbon, after discovering that the southern coast of Africa was really bounded by a navigable sea. On the 4th July 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon with a small squadron of three vessels manned by sixty sailors, bent on making his way to India round the Cape of Good Hope, then known as the Cabo Tormentoso, or Stormy Cape. The hardships and dangers to be encountered were appalling, and led to a mutiny, which was with difficulty quelled by the firmness and prudence of the commander. He doubled the Cape at length, and reached in safety the small town of Melinda, where he secured the services of an Indian pilot. In twenty-three days they reached Malabar, and on the 20th May 1498 they came to anchor at Calicut. Gama was well received by the zamarin; whom, though not without difficulty, he convinced of the advantages that would accrue to his country by the establishment of a commercial treaty with Portugal. Gama then turned his prows homeward; and, having touched at various points on the Asiatic and African coasts, he once more cast anchor in the Tagus in the September of 1499, after an absence of two years and two months. Emmanuel received him with great honours, ennobled him, and gave him the title of admiral of the Indian, Persian, and Arabian seas. The effect of Gama's voyage was soon visible in the ruined trade of the Italian commercial republics, which had hitherto monopolized the traffic of the east. In prosecution of Gama's discoveries, another fleet was sent out to India, under Cabral, who accidentally discovered the Brazils, and on reaching his destination established a factory at Calicut. The natives, instigated by the Moorish merchants, who were jealous of the Portuguese, rose up in arms, and murdered all whom Cabral had left behind. To avenge this cruelty, the Portuguese fitted out a powerful armament, of which the command was given to Gama. The admiral set sail, and devastated those parts of Africa and India where he had formerly been received in a hostile spirit. He executed especial vengeance upon Calicut, which he bombarded and reduced to ashes, at the same time hanging the sailors of the vessels in the harbour which had fallen into his hands. He then sailed away to Cochin, where he established a factory, from which the power of Portugal radiated over India. In 1503 he returned home, and as before was welcomed with honours and titles, but was not immediately re-appointed to the command in India. He remained at home in inaction during nearly twenty years; but in 1524 (some years after the death of the great Albuquerque, who had been consolidating the Portuguese power in the east), Gama was appointed viceroy of Portuguese India. Not long after arriving at Cochin Gama died, in 1525, and was buried there; but thirteen years later his bones were disinterred and conveyed to Portugal by order of John III., king of that country.

Vasco da Gama was a man of great ability, courage, and enterprise; but he possessed none of these qualities in a higher degree than many others of his contemporaries who have long since passed into oblivion. He owes no small portion of his fame to the fact of his being the hero of a part of the national epic of Portugal. The moment of his doubling the Cape of Good Hope, and seeing in the clouds the Spirit of that stormy region, has been often seized by painters as a striking subject for pictorial delineation. One of the most remarkable of these pictures is that by the late David Scott, of Edinburgh.