Indian Ocean trade Madagascar at this time leaving behind a lasting cultural and genetic legacy. Chinese fleets under Zheng He criscrossed the Indian Ocean during the early part of the 15th century. The missions were diplomatic rather than commercial, but many exchanges of gift and produces were made. The Portuguese under Vasco da Gama discovered a naval route to the Indian Ocean through the southern tip of Africa in 1497–98. Initially, the Portuguese were mainly active in Calicut, but the northern region of Gujarat was even more important for trade, and an essential intermediary in east-west trade. Venetian interests were directly threatened as
Major explorations after the Age of Discovery the famous line "Dr. Livingstone, I presume"), started again for Zanzibar in 1874. In one of the most memorable of all exploring expeditions in Africa, Stanley circumnavigated Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika. Striking farther inland to the Lualaba, he followed that river down to the Atlantic Ocean—which he reached in August 1877—and proved it to be the Congo. Portuguese Serpa Pinto was the fourth explorer to cross Africa from west to east and the first to lay down a reasonably accurate route between Bié (in present-day Angola) and Lealui. In 1877, Serpa Pinto and Portuguese naval captains Capelo and Ivens explored