Philippines, Japan,
and far Cathay passed on its road to the Mediterranean? Was it not
one of the largest trade markets in Asia, where rode the strange ships
of many a distant shore? The fame of Albuquerque spread throughout
the Eastern world. But he was not content with Malacca. The Spice
Islands lay beyond--the Spice Islands with all their cloves and
nutmegs and their countless riches must yet be won for Portugal.

Up to this year, 1511, they had not been reached by the Portuguese.
But now Francisco Serrano was sent off from Malacca to explore farther.
Skirting the north of Java, he found island after island rich in cloves
and nutmeg. So struck was he with his new discoveries that he wrote
to his friend Magellan: "I have discovered yet another new world larger
and richer than that found by Vasco da Gama."

It is curious to remember how vastly important was this little group
of islands--now part of the Malay Archipelago and belonging to the
Dutch--to the explorers of the sixteenth century. Strange tales as
usual reached Portugal about these newly found lands. Here lived men
with "spurs on their ankles like cocks," hogs with horns, hens that
laid their eggs nine feet under ground, rivers with living fish, yet
so hot that they took the skin off any man that bathed in their waters,
poisonous crabs, oysters with shells so large that they served as fonts
for baptizing children.

Truly these mysterious Spice Islands held more attractions for the
Portuguese explorers than did the New World of Columbus and Vespucci.
Their possession meant riches and wealth and--this was not the end.
Was there not land beyond? Indeed, before the Spice Islands were
conquered by Portugal, trade had already been opened up with China
and, before the century was half over, three Portuguese seamen had
visited Japan.

CHAPTER XXVI

BALBOA SEES THE PACIFIC OCEAN

It is said that Ferdinand Magellan, the hero of all geographical
discovery, with his circumnavigation of the whole round world, had
cruised about the Spice Islands, but what he really knew of them from
personal experience no one knows. He had served under Almeida, and
with Albuquerque had helped in the conquest of Malacca. After seven
years of a "vivid life of adventure by sea and land, a life of siege
and shipwreck, of war and wandering," inaction became impossible. He
busied himself with charts and the art of navigation. He dreamt of
reaching the Spice Islands by sailing _we