Excerpt from The Story of South Africa And now he was safe back in Portugal again. He had been away for more than two years, and he had lost more than two - thirds of his men but he had placed Portugal first 'in the race for the Eastern trade, and brought her merchants a prospect of boundless commercial development. No wonder, therefore, that he was ennobled by the king, and that the title of Admiral of the Eastern Seas was granted to him and his descendants after him. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.