“…Due to the difficulty of maneuvering large long-distance trading vessels and the dangers of sailing close to the shore, outgoing ships on the India route typically did not tack along the West African coastline, but would sail from Portugal southwest across the Atlantic and then southeast on the trade winds [21,46]. Ivory from West Africa was frequently shipped to the islands of Cape Verde and São Tomé, to be counted, weighed, and sent via smaller vessels to Casa da Índia in Lisbon, the central clearing house for African and Indian imports to Portugal [22,[46][47][48]. Centralized loading of outgoing long-distance trading vessels (naus) in Lisbon enabled tight control of the valuable cargo.…”