What Vasco De Gama did not know, is that it
was no accident that his ship had come to the island. No one in the crew
noticed the addition of Velencio De Gaul, by the time anyone took note of him,
they just assumed he must have been a part of the crew from the beginning of
the trip. He was Italian and a hard worker. He spoke fluent Portuguese and
French. He was articulate and thoughtful. Most of all he never complained and
did everything asked of him.
Vasco’s second checked the logs but could not
find a record of the man’s contracted payment for the journey. When he asked Velencio
about this, the man smiled widely and suggested that perhaps if they both
checked then they might find the record. The second was relieved to find
another man who could read on board and readily agreed. That night, the two
checked the logs, and lo and behold Velencio pointed to a page and declared that
it was right there. The second looked at the page hard, he could have sworn
that it had been a shipping manifest but now it read clearly that Velencio had
boarded in Porta du Spain and had come aboard trading passage for work to Java.
Both men laughed at this simple oversight and then Velencio had suggested that
perhaps the second was very tired and should turn in early.
Later, the second had returned to the log and
read the entry carefully, the contract was all there and signed off on. He
shook his head at the oversight, the voyage was taking longer than expected and
they were all tired often. Velencio returned to work and most of the crew
accepted his presence among them. When the ship reached Java, several crewmen gathered
to bid Velencio farewell with promises to look him up next landfall. The second
returned to sign off on the log and could not find the record of the contract.
He checked and rechecked the log three times to no avail. He did find a missing
shipping manifest that he had lost track of right around the time he had first
taken note of the crewman Velecio del- for the life of him could not remember
the man surname and when he check the log could not find a record of it.
Hastily the second returned to the deck to search for the crewman Velencio, who
was no longer on board. The ship was due to depart java soon for the colonies in
India and the men were busy. The second asked around but no one could remember
a man named Velencio nor even an Italian crewman. They were all honest
Christian Portuguese men here.
When the second approached Vasco, he could
see that the captain was in a foul mood. It appears that the log containing
Vasco’s report on the mysterious island was missing. For a moment, the second
wondered if the missing Italian would have had something to do with that. But
Vasco simply cursed fate and the bad storm a fortnight went by and said he would
rewrite the entry from memory and would the second verify what they decided to
record. The second agreed and tried hard to remember what he had needed to tell
the captain about a missing crewman.
Vasco had planned to seek out the mysterious island on the return voyage, but fair and steady winds kept the ship in motion. By the time, the island would have been on the horizon, Vasco had completely forgotten about it and the missing Italian crewman. The second had likewise forgotten about the crewman and the entry in the logs went unnoticed as did the new marking on the maps.
So, the island would remain unknown to cartographers though the occasional pirate or merchant would see it from afar and wonder briefly about it during the passage of time
