VENTURES IN THE CABOTS’ TRACK

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In the illustrious year of 1498, which witnessed Sebastian Cabot’s westward discoveries along North America, and Columbus’s sighting of South America, Vasco da Gama, pursuing his eastward navigations, crossed the Indian Ocean, dropped anchor off the city of Calicut, on the Malagar coast, and set up on shore a marble pillar as proof of his discovery of India by an ocean highway. Thus Portugal offset Spain’s claim to the West Indies by priority of discovery, with a claim through first discovery to the East Indies, and stood ready to assert it, while England allowed her right, by the same token, in the North American continent to lapse.