what continent did vasco da gama sail around to reach india

A second expedition 20 years later took him from MOROCCO across the Sahara to the empire of Mali. In 1330 he sailed along the eastern coast, visiting Mombasa and Kilwa (now in TANZANIA). The first extensive eyewitness account of travels in sub-Saharan Africa comes from the Arab IBN BATTUTA.

One notable holy man, Abdullah bin Ya Sin, may have brought Islam to ancient Ghana in 1076. Such functions as fortune telling, praying for rain, and interpreting dreams gave Arab travelers a chance to plant the seeds of Islam and gain converts. Some early references describe Arab travelers as holy men who performed religious services for local rulers. The spread of Islam was closely related to travel into sub-Saharan Africa. The first trader had a fairly easy trip, but the second had constant trouble with slaves who were hungry, sick, or trying to escape. They bought slaves, gold, and other goods from the lands on the southern edge of the desert. One Arab account compares the experiences of two traders, one with gold and the other with slaves, returning north across the desert. The early Muslim travelers took particular interest in two African kingdoms: Kanem, located north of Lake Chad, and Ghana, on the border of present-day MAURITANIA and MALI (not part of modern Ghana). Trade motivated many Arab merchants to travel. Most of these accounts were written by scholars who stayed comfortably north of the desert and collected tales from returning travelers. They introduced Arabic language and culture and the religion of Islam to the region. Eventually some Arabs began venturing south into the SAHARA DESERT and beyond it to the Africa they called the bilad al-sudan, “the land of the blacks.” Reports of their journeys appear in books from as early as the 900s. 600s, invaders from the Arabian peninsula colonized Egypt and North Africa. Driven by trade, conquest, religion, science, or curiosity, generations of explorers gradually revealed Africa to the rest of the world.īeginning in the A.D. Europeans spent hundreds of years charting the shores of Africa and then probing all of the continent's interior. The Chinese learned much about eastern Africa's coast along the Indian Ocean. Arabs crossed the northern and western parts of Africa. The rest of Africa, however, remained a mystery to the outside world until medieval travelers began exploring the continent. Phoenicians from what is now Lebanon founded the colony of CARTHAGE (in present-day TUNISIA), the Greeks established settlements in LIBYA, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, and for about 300 years the Romans included the coastal region of North Africa in their empire.

In ancient times kingdoms of the Middle East and southern Europe had dealings with EGYPT. Early in recorded history, people from outside Africa visited-or at least knew about-the lands on Africa's northern coast.

What continent did vasco da gama sail around to reach india