Real Death Is Preferable To A

This saying is attributed to Vasco da Gama but does not appear in any of his authenticated writings; it is apocryphal. Da Gama left no personal journals — the main record of his first voyage is an anonymous account attributed by some scholars to Álvaro Velho, a soldier who sailed with the expedition, now held in the Municipal Library of Porto. Da Gama's actual documented character, drawn from the Roteiro and later Portuguese chronicles, was stern and often brutal: he was known for his harsh treatment of Arab and Indian merchants and sailors encountered on the route to India.