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About The Book: With what eager, hopeful heart Vasco da Gama looked forward to this voyage across the Indian Ocean! How long seemed the days in traversing it and how vast seemed these uncertain seas! If he could only at last reach the welcome shores of India, the haven he had now been seeking, amid every danger, for nearly a year and a half; if he could make a treaty of friendship with the sovereign of that country, and load his caravels with its riches,—with what a thrill of pride and joy would he turn his prows again towards home! A moment after, the pilot Canaca came running up, and prostrating himself at Vasco's feet, pointed with trembling finger towards the horizon in the east."Behold, captain!—the land of India!" At first, Vasco proposed to go himself on shore the next morning, to present himself before the potentate, and frankly to tell him the purpose for which he had come to India. About The Author: George Makepeace Towle (August 27, 1841 – August 9, 1893) was an American lawyer, politician, and author. He is best known for his translations of Jules Verne' s works, in particular his 1873 translation of Around the World in Eighty Days. Towle was born in Washington, D.C., and earned degrees in arts from Yale University in 1861 and in law from the Harvard Law School in 1863, and practised in Boston in 1863–65. He was United States consul at Nantes, France, in 1866–68, and in the latter year was transferred to the consulate at Bradford, England, where he remained until his return to Boston in 1870. One of his many prominent friends was Charles Dickens, to whose periodical, All the Year Round, he contributed several articles on American affairs. On September 16, 1866, in Paris, Towle married Nellie Lane of Boston, who survived him. Towle died in Brookline after a long illness culminating in paralysis of the brain, and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery. He had no children.