GAMA
374
GAMALIEL
St. Ceallagh, who died about 550, is still venerated in
Kilchrist, St. Sourney in Ballindereen, .St. Foila in
Clarenbridge, St. Colga in Kilcolgan. In the ninth
century lived Flan MacLonan, chief poet of Ireland. In
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries lived John
Lynch, author of "Cambrensis Eversus"; O'Flaherty,
author of the " Ogygia ' ' ; Dr. Kirwan, Bishop of Killala ;
MacFirbis, the annalist ; Dr. Fahy, whose history has
become a standard work; Dr. O'Dea, Bishop of
Clonfert, and others.
Statistics (1909): parish priests, 29; administrator, 1 ; curates, 29 ; regulars, 20 ; churches, 53 ; houses of regulars, -1; convents, 10; college, 1; monasteries, 3; Catholic population in 1901, 70,576 ; non-Catholic, 1931.
Hardiman, History of Galway (Dublin, 1S20); Fahv, History and Antiquities of Kilmacduagh (Dublin, 1893); O'Flaherty, Description of lar Connaught (Dublin, 1846); Brady, Episcopal Succession (Rome, 1876); Insh Catholic Directory for 1909.
E. A. D'Alton.
Gama, Va8co da, the discoverer of the sea route to the East Indies; b. at Sines, Province of Alemtejo, Portugal, about 1469; d. at Cochin, India, 2-1 Dec, 1524. His father, Estevao da Gama, was Alcaide Mor of Sines, and Commendador of Cereal, and held an important office at court under Alfonso V. After the return of Bartolomeu Dias, Estevao was chosen by Joao II to command the next expedition of discovery, but, as both died before the project could be carried into execution, the commission was given by Emanuel I to Vasco, who had already distinguished himself at the beginning of the year 1490 by defendingthe Portu- guese colonies on the coast of Guinea against French encroachments. Bartolomeu Dias had proceeded as far as the Great Fish River (Rio do Infante), and had in addition established the fact that the coast of Africa on the other side of the Cape extended to the north- east. Pedro de Covilhao on his way from India had descended the east coast of Africa as far as the twen- tieth degree of south latitude, and had become cogni- zant of the old Arabic-Indian commercial association. The nautical problem, therefore, to be solved by Vasco da Gama was clearly outlined, and the course for the sea route to the East Indies designated. In January, 1497, the command of the expedition was solemnly conferred upon Vasco da Gama, and on 8 July, 1497, the fleet sailed from Lisbon under the leadership of Vasco, his brother Paulo, and Nicoldo Coelho, with a crew of about one hundred and fifty men. At the beginning of November, they anchored in St. Helena Bay and, on the 25th of the same month, in Mossel Bay. On 16 December, the fleet arrived at the fur- thest landing-point of Dias, gave its present name to the coast of Natal on Christmas Day, and reached by the end of January, 1498, the mouth of the Zambesi, which was in the territory controlled by the Arabian maritime commercial association. Menaced by the Arabs in Mozambique (2 March) and Mombasa (7 April), who feared for their commerce, and, on the con- trary, received in a friendly manner at Melinda, East Africa (14 April), they reached under the guidance of a pilot on 20 May, their journey's end, the harbour of Calicut, India, which, from the fourteenth century, had been the principal market for trade in spices, precious stones, and pearls. Here also, as elsewhere, Gama skilfully surraovmted the difficulties placed in his way l)y the Arabs, in league with the Indian rulers, and won for his country the respect needful for the found- ing of a new colony.
On 5 October, 1498, the fleet began its homeward voyage. Coelho arrived in Portugal on 10 July, 1499; Paulo da Gama died at Angra ; Vasco reached Lisbon in September, where a brilliant reception awaited him. He was appointed to the newly created po.st of Ad- miral of the Indian Ocean, which carried with it a high salary, and the feudal rights over Sines were assured to him. In l.>02 Gama was again sent out, with his uncle Vicente .Sodrfi and his nephew Estevao, and a
new fleet of twenty ships, to safeguard the interests of
the commercial enterprises established in the meantime
in India by Cabral, and of the Portuguese who had
settled there. On the outward voyage he visited
Sofala (East Africa), exacted the payment of tribute
from the Sheikh of Kilwa (E. Africa), and proceeded
with unscrupulous might, and even indeed with great
cruelty, against the Arabian merchant ships and the
Samudrin (or Zamorin) of Calicut. He laid siege to
the city, annihilated a fleet of twenty-nine warships,
and concluded favourable treaties and alliances with
the native princes. His commercial success was espe-
cially brilliant, the value of the merchandise which he
brought with him amounting to more than a million in
gold. Again high honours fell to his share, and in the
year 1519 he received instead of Sines, which was trans-
ferred to the Order of Santiago, the cities of Vidigueira
and Villa dos Frades, resigned by the Duke Dom
Jayme of Braganza, with jurisdiction and the title of
count. Once again, in 1524, he was sent to India by
the Crown, under Joao III, to supersede the Viceroy
Eduardo de Menezes, who was no longer master of the
situation. He re-established order, but at the end of
the year he was stricken by death at Cochin. In 1539,
his remains, which up to that time had lain in the
Franciscan church there, were brought to Portugal
and interred at Vidigueira. To conmiemorate the
fir.st voyage to India, the celebrated convent of the
Hieronymites in Belem was erected. A large part of
the " Lusiad" of Camoens deals with the voyages and
discoveries of Vasco da Gama.
The oldest and most reliable sources of the history of the voyage of discovery, whose authors were participators in it, are the Roteiro da viagevi .... rfe ... . Vasco da Gama em 1497, 2nd ed., revised, by Herculano and da Paiva (Lisbon, 1861); also La navigazione prima . . . scritta per un gentiluomo Fior- enlino ... in Ramdsio, Delle Navigazimti .... I, 119 sqq. Among the earliest are Castanheda, de Barros, Goes, Oso- Rio. Maffei, and others, Correa (Lendas da India) giving posi- tive information regarding the third voyage only.
Stanley, The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama (Hakluyt .Society, No. 42. London, 1869); de Aragao, Vasco da Gama (3rd ed., Lisbon, 1898); Schefer, Navigation de Vasgue de Gamme ... in Bibliothtque des voyages aneiens (Paris, 1898), II; Ravenstein. A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama . . . (Hakluyt Society, No. 69, London, 1898); HtJM- MERlcH, Vasco da Gama und die Entdeckung des Seeu'eges nach Ostindien (Munich, 1898); Telle.s da Gama, Z,c Com(e .Amiral Vasco da Gama (Paris. 1902). OttO HaRTIG.
Gamaliel {Taim\i.ijk, Greek form of the Hebrew 7N'?DJ, "reward of God"). — The name designates in the New Testament a Pharisee and celebrated doctor of the Law. Gamaliel is represented in Acts, v, 34 sqq., as advising his fellow-members of the Sanhedrin not to put to death St, Peter and the Apostles, who, not- withstanding the prohibition of the Jewish authorities, had continued to preach to the people. His advice, however unwelcome, was acted upon, so gre.at was his authority with his contemporaries. We learn from Acts, xxii, 3, that he was the teacher of St. Paul; but we are not told either the nature or the extent of the influence which he exercised upon the future apostle of the Gentiles. Gamaliel is rightly identified with an illustrious Jewish doctor of the Law, who bore the same name and died eighteen years before the de- struction of Jerusalem. In the Talmud, this Gamaliel bears, like his grandfather Hillel, the surname of " the Elder", and is the first to whom the title "Rabban", "our master", was given. He appears therein, as in the book of the Acts, as a prominent member of the highest tribunal of the Jews. He is also treated as the originator of many legal ordinances ; as the father of a son, whom he called Simeon, after his father's name, and of a daughter who married the priest Simon ben Nathanael. "The Jewish accounts make him die a Pharisee, and state th.at : " When he died, the honour of the Torah (the law) ceased, and purity and piety be- came extinct." At an early date, ecclesiastical tra- dition has supposed that Gamaliel embraced the Chris- tian Faith, and remained a member of the Sanhedrin
