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No. 342: An Historical Meeting

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An Historical Meeting

First | Previous | 2011-04-08 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/owls/?comic=342

Strip by: LTDave

Ambrose: Excuse me, aren't you Christopher Columbus?
Delkin {Columbus}: Who's asking?
Ambrose: Vasco. Vasco de Gama.
Delkin: What, the guy who sailed to the Indies by going south around Good Hope and east across the Indian Ocean? The first European to sail to the Indies and bring back spices and jewels and circumvent the trade monopolies imposed by the Turks?
Ambrose {de Gama}: Yeah, that's me.
Ambrose: Aren't you the guy who tried to reach the Indies by sailing west, and ended up discovering some islands or something? The guy who'll go down in history for discovering a New World?
Delkin: {shaking hands} Nice to meet you.
Ambrose: Same here.
{They walk away from one another}
Both: {thinking} What a jerk.

The author writes:

I've no evidence, of course, but I imagine that both of these men would have thought the other had stolen his legacy to history. The one, who actually achieved what the Europeans had been trying to do for the best part of a century, and the other, who discovered something quite extraordinary, but died broken and disappointed.