CHAPTER I.
IN QUEST OF THE SPICE ISLANDS.
"And the New South rose with her forehead bare-- Her forehead hare to meet the smiling sun-- Australia in her golden panoply; And far off Empires see her work begun, And her large hope has compassed every sea." -- SIR GILBERT PARKER.
What was the relative position of European nations in the arena of maritime discovery at the beginning of the sixteenth century?
Portugal was then mistress of the sea.
Spain, too, indulging in an awakening yawn, was clutching with her outstretched hands at the shadowy treasure-islands of an unfinished dream.
England had not yet launched her navy; Holland had not built hers.
Portugal had already buried a king--the great grandson of Edward III.

of England--whose enterprise had won for him the name of Henry the Navigator.
Slowly and sadly--slowly always, sadly often--his vessels had crept down the west coast of Africa; little by little one captain had overstepped the distance traversed by his predecessor, until at last in 1497 a successful voyager actually rounded the Cape.
Then Portugal, clear of the long wall that had fenced her in on one side for so many thousands of miles, trod the vast expanse of waters to the east, and soon began to plant her flag in various ports of the Indian Ocean.

[See Portuguese flags on Desliens' Map.] Pushing on further east in search of the Spice Islands, she found Sumatra, Borneo, the Celebes, Java, Timor, Ceram, the Aru Islands and Gilolo; she had reached the famous and much coveted Moluccas, or Spice Islands, and set to work building forts and establishing trading stations in the same way as England is doing nowadays in South Africa and elsewhere.* [* In a chart of the East Indian Archipelago, drawn probably during the first Portuguese voyages to the Spice Islands (1511-1513), the island of Gilolo is called Papoia.

Many of the islands situated on the west and north-west coast of New Guinea became known to the Portuguese at an early date, and were named collectively OS PAPUAS.

The name was subsequently given to the western parts of New Guinea.