Europe to India can be a long way, by foot, by boat, by Salman Rushdie novel, but perhaps no venture to the subcontinent and the Far East would prove quite so transformative as the one undertaken by the seven foot explorer Vasco Da Howard, who when standing on the deck of his ship, due to his height, did not look out onto the blank, blue ocean but down upon it from the faces of constellations. However, despite his physical ability to view the world from the stars, Vasco Da Howard often navigated the seas by placing his chest flat on the wooden rail of his ship and by extending his legs on a horizontal plane above the rising and falling waves, which, to his men, made it look like he was levitating, and the action garnered him the name The Mahogany Plank, because at night all one could see where the ship met the unknown were Vasco Da Howard's eyes floating in the air; two white pearls plucked from Poseidon's beard, glowing.
And, while Vasco Da Howard was loved and awed over by his crew, he was also feared. When his ship, the Sao Van Gundy, crashed into India, it is said that Vasco Da Howard swam ashore, stomped into the jungle's thick green, and came out wearing a bloody tiger skin on his back, the teeth perched over his forehead, and took a bite of the beast's still beating heart as it pumped a mist of crimson out into the salty gusts, and from that savage bite it is said that Vasco Da Gama annexed the ability to speak with kings, his teeth grisly with raw tiger meat.
Art by Michael Langston.
Click here for the Real Life Historical Account of Koberigo Vespucci, or here for the true tale of Josh Childress Colombo. Also, the adventures of Deronimus Williamus (John Cabot) are recorded here.
0 comments:
Post a Comment