The misty Orient, with its "hidden new people, never before seen", had, in the colourful words of Diogo Velho, become a reality: "everything has now been discovered, what was distant is now within reach, future generations will certainly attain the treasures of the Earth" 1.
Not only did Vasco da Gama's journey open a new trade route for commerce from the Orient to the West, it also caused the Arab and Italian traders to go bankrupt. At the same time it was the last step in the attempt to tame the "Terrible Ocean" first undertaken by Prince Henry the Navigator. For two centuries cartography, cosmography and navigational techniques had been developed and improved.
There is evidence of this in the Portugaliae Monumenta Cartografica and in the geographical and cartographical notes made by the Portuguese travellers on the most remote corners of the Earth, until then unknown to Europe. As a result of their scientific voyages to India in search of the Christian Monarchs, Portugal brought pepper for the kitchen gardens.
More importantly, driven by faith and heroism, Portugal awakened a petty, greedy southern Europe to a concept of the world as a stage on which history could be enacted. Geographically, Portugal constitutes a small strip of territory on the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula.
At large in vast areas, limited only by the sea and the sky, the Portuguese sought and promoted friendly relations with the people with whom they came into contact and, in general, respected the various ethnic differences. This formed the basis for the exchange between Portugal and the Tropics. The effects of this are seen in the Portuguese mentality. At the same time, they created small replicas of their own social structure: wherever they went they built humanitarian institutions for the benefit of all those who sought relief from distress regardless of religious or racial differences.
