of a sea route from west to east.Crowley 2015, pp. 21–23 At the cape, Dias erected the last of their padrãos and then headed northward. They reached their supply ship in July, after nine months of absence, and found that six of that ship’s nine crewmen had died in skirmishes with the natives. The vessel had become rotten with worms, so they unloaded the supplies they needed from it, and burnt it on the beach. Few details are known about the remainder of the voyage. The ships made stops at Príncipe, the Rio do Resgate (in present-day Liberia), and the Portuguese trading post of São Jorge da Mina. Dias returned to Lisbon in December 1488, after an absence of 16 months.Crowley 2015, pp. 21–23 The Dias expedition had explored a thousand more miles of the African coastline than previous expeditions had reached; it had rounded the southern tip of the continent, and it had demonstrated that the most effective southward ship route lay in the open ocean well to the west of the African coast-a route that would be followed by generations of Portuguese sailors. Despite these successes, Dias' reception at court was muted. There were no official proclamations, and, at the time, Dias received little in recognition of his accomplishments. Later years Dias was later ennobled for his accomplishments, and by 1494 he was serving as a squire in the court of King John II. He also served as superintendent of the royal warehouses from 1494 to 1497. Following Dias’s return from his successful first voyage around Africa’s southern cape, Portugual took a decade-long break from Indian Ocean exploration. King John was beset by numerous problems, including the death of his only son, a war in Morocco, and his own failing health. It was not until 1497 that another voyage was commissioned and Dias was asked to provide assistance. Drawing on his experience with maritime exploration, Dias contributed to the design and construction of the São Gabriel and its sister ship the São Rafael''. These were two of the ships that Vasco da Gama used to sail around the Cape of Good Hope and continue to India. Dias participated in the first leg of da Gama’s voyage but stayed behind after reaching the Cape Verde Islands. Two years later he was one of the captains of the second Indian expedition, headed by Pedro Álvares Cabral. This flotilla was the