In April 1498, three Portuguese ships appeared on the horizon off Malindi. Their captain was Vasco da Gama. He was the first European to sail to India around the Cape of Good Hope, and the Kenyan coast was his refuelling stop. The Sultan of Malindi welcomed him. Da Gama left with a pilot to guide him to India and a promise of alliance. What the Sultan could not have known was that the Portuguese would soon return with cannons, demanding control of the trade routes that had made the Swahili coast rich for a thousand years.