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For the time being, he made good progress, but even he could never have guessed what adventures and surprises were in store for him. In various guises, he traveled down the Red Sea to the Socotra, Kannur and reached Calicut in 1489. By the end of that year, he had turned back to Goa and was on the way up the straights of Hormuz, all the time studying the available trade goods and their sources as required of him by King John II.
Mindful of the direction from which Portuguese sailors would approach India, he sailed off on a dhow from Oman to Mogadishu, Malindi, Mombasa and Kilwa touching as far south as Sofala in 1490. By the end of this leg of the trip he was sure that first there was brisk trade in spices and secondly that as long as Portuguese sailors reached Sofala, the rest of the journey would be easy since they could hire a pilot to take them safely and quickly across the Indian ocean.
For the rest of 1490, he went back to Cairo via Aden and the Red Sea where learnt of his companion’s death. He passed in writing the information gathered so far to two Portuguese Jews; Rabbi Ben Abraham of Beja and another one known only as Joseph, a cobbler from Lamego. While Joseph returned home to take one copy of de Covilham’s observations, the Rabbi accompanied him down the Red Sea, round Yemen and Muscat and up to the straits of Hormuz.
The Rabbi then set off for home with another copy of the report while da Covilham continued alone to take over where his compatriot left off by visiting Ethiopia. But first, he went to Jeddah, entered Mecca disguised as a pious Muslim, back up to the Sinai Peninsula and then Aden and Zeila in 1492. From here he entered Ethiopia through Massawa and met with Emperor Alexander.
It was while at the Ethiopian emperor’s court that events took an interesting turn, he was apparently received well and provided with a house but for some reason prevented from leaving the country. He would marry, run businesses and by all accounts live a privileged life until 1526 when he died apparently after attempting to return home in 1524 (his son did make it back to Portugal).
Though it has been speculated, at times taken for a fact and quite possible, there is no proof of da Covilham’s reports reaching Lisbon before the departure of Vasco da Gama on his first voyage. On the one hand, long distance journeys in those days took years and were fraught with all kinds of hindrances including robbery, loss of property, death etc. On the other hand, travel from the Middle East to Europe was common in those days and the Mediterranean Sea was busy with trading traffic.
Any experienced traveler – as the Rabbi probably was – would have easily known the necessary preparations, where to embark and how to conduct one self. Even if none of the two copies reached Lisbon, reliable information regarding Indian Ocean trade could have come from other independent sources. There was a visiting priest called Lucas Marcos from Ethiopia who had been as far as Lisbon in 1490 (by some accounts, the year of his arrival in Lisbon was 1452) .
In addition to Lucas Marcos, king Joao II had sent Antonio de Lisboa and Pedro de Monterroyo to mingle with pilgrims in the Holy land and gather information about Prester John, but the pair did not speak Arabic and returned home without venturing too far out.
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels Vol II
Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia pp. 270
Both had been sent by King John II for this specific task but why a Rabbi had been sent remains a mystery. Whatever the reason, it is an illustration of how integrated Jews were in Portugal at the time and the important roles they played in the society. A few years earlier, Joseph had traveled to the Middle East by land and down the Euphrates to Bagdad. Along the way and especially at Bagdad, he gathered information about the various overland trade routes from India to the Levant, Anatolia and other lands towards the east. He returned home to Portugal and on passing this information to the king was sent to find da Covilham and de Paiva and instruct them on the best ways gong about their mission
When da Covilham arrived in Ethiopia, he was not the first European there, he found before him two Venicians, first Nicolo Branchalion (Brancaleon) who had been there since 1482 at the latest and also Francesco Suriano who had visited in 1482. In total, there were about 14 Europeans who had preceded him to the emperor’s court. In 1520, the first Portuguese ambassador party reached the court and met with da Covilham, this mission led by Rodrigo de Lima had unsuccessfully attempted to reach Ethiopia earlier in 1515 after being sent there by Nuno Tristao but had met with too many setbacks. One of the embassy staff was a priest called Francisco Alvares who met with da Covilham and later wrote about his (da Covilham) travels and stay in Ethiopia. Alvares left Ethiopia in 1527 taking with him a letter from the emperor to the Pope. This letter was eventually delivered in 1533 to the Pope in Rome where Alvares probably also met his death. Francisco Alvares’ letters back home to Portugal were the first confirmed communication about de Paiva and da Covilham’s travels travails and observations.
A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama p 24
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