EARLY VOYAGES TO THE EAST. 23 



positions on a map given him by King Jolm of 

 Portuo-al. Thence lie returned alonor the coast of 

 Persia to Caj^e Guardafai, and continued south to 

 Mozambique and " Zofala," where he ascertained 

 that that land joined the Cape of Good Hope, and 

 thus was the first man who Icnew that it was possible 

 to sail from Europe to India. From Zofala he re- 

 turned to Abyssinia, and sent his diary, charts, and 

 drawings to Genoa by some Portuguese merchants 

 who were trading at Memj)his. 



On recei\dng this news. King Emanuel, who had 

 succeeded King John, sent out, during the following 

 year, 1495, foui* ships under Vasco di Gama, who 

 visited Natal and Mozambique ; in 1498 he was at 

 Calcutta, and in 1499 back at Lisbon. 



In 1509 the Portuguese, under Sequiera, first came 

 into the archipelago. During the next year Alfonso 

 Albuquerque visited Sumatra, and in 1511 took the 

 Malay city Malacca, and established a military post 

 from which he sent out Antonio d'Abreu to search 

 for the Sj^ice Islands. On his way eastward, 

 D'Abreu touched at Agasai (Gresik) on Java. 



In 1511 the Portuguese visited Bantam, and two 

 years later Alvrin was sent from Malacca with four 

 vessels to bring away a cargo of spices from a ship 

 ■wrecked on the Java coast while on her way back 

 from the Spice Islands. 



Ludovico Barthema was the first European who 

 described Java from personal observation. He re- 

 mained on it fourteen days, but his descriptions 

 are questionable iu part, for he represents parents as 

 selling their children, to be eaten by their purchasers, 



