Carlos Gago Coutinho was born on 17 February 1869 in Belém on the outskirts of Lisbon, on the “old Restelo Beach” as he liked to say, and not in the Algarve or Luanda as some people suggest (Precursor da Navegação Aérea [Precursor of Aerial Navigation], 1969, p. 3). His father, José Viegas Gago Coutinho, had been a naval gunnery sergeant. His paternal grandparents, who were also from the Algarve, had been booksellers in Faro – a fact that may explain his love of both books and the sea. However, it is not only these genetic or cultural factors that make him different. It is above all his life story.

His mother’s early death (1877) and his father’s absences meant that he ended up being raised by a lady called Maria Augusta Pereira, until 1914, when she too passed away. His life experiences made the young Gago Coutinho stand out early on. When he was thirteen, he went to Lisbon Central High School (now Camões High School), where he enthusiastically studied Orography, Hydrography, Climate, Ethnography and History up until the then third grade. When asked if he had already been to Africa, he replied: “No, I have never left Lisbon, but I am interested in everything to do with its thousands of years of civilisation and the customs of its aborigines.” (Gago Coutinho - um talento invulgar e multiforme [GC – an unusual and multiform talent], 1969, p. 164).

After leaving high school, he enrolled at the Polytechnic School (Escola Politécnica, 1885), where he received excellent marks in Mathematics and Astronomy. Because his father could not afford to send him abroad to study Engineering (bridge and road-building) at l’École des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, he went to the Portuguese Naval School the following year. During this period he visited the National Archive at the Torre do Tombo quite assiduously, focusing on the journeys and routes taken by the Portuguese explorers.

He completed the Navy course at the head of his class in 1888. He had to pawn the family silver to pay for his first uniform and was only able to get it out of hock later on, with the money he earned during his time at the Mozambique Naval Station.

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