Of the 5,500 men who went to India between 1497, on Gama’s first voyage, and 1504, some 1,800—35 percent—had not returned. The majority of these had gone down in shipwrecks. Yet the rewards were excellent. Vasco da Gama’s first voyage had covered the capital investment sixty times over. It was calculated that the crown was making a million cruzados a year after costs—a vast sum—and
