COMING OF ENGLISH AND DUTCH 209 



And meanwhile the East was becoming both better known Drake, 

 and more attractive. In 1580 Drake came home with a 

 the ship-load of cloves, and the alleged monopoly treaty 

 with the King of Ternate. In 1588 Cavendish brought 

 news that Englishmen might trade as freely as the Por- 

 tugals in the Moluccas, and urged that Elizabeth should 

 take advantage of the defeat of the Armada to seize the 

 spoil of her enemy in all the richest places of the world. 

 In 1583 Ralph Fitch set forth on a grand Asiatic tour 

 which brought him to the court at Delhi of Akbar 

 the Great, founder of the Moghul Empire, to Burmah, 

 and to Malacca, and enabled him to bring home great 

 news to English merchants when he returned to London 

 in 1591. 



But by far the most important newsbook was that written Linschoten 

 in 1595-6 by the Dutchman John Huyghen van Linschoten, t 

 the Marco Polo of this part of our story. As a boy at Haar- World, 

 lem, he had taken " no small delight in reading of histories I595 ~ ' 

 and strange adventures." Thinking that " no time is 

 more wasted than when a young fellow hangs about his 

 mother's kitchen like a baby," he traded in Seville, and 

 then in 1583 sailed to India in the suite of a new bishop 

 of Goa. At Goa he lived five years, learning the news 

 of the whole Eastern world, and making notes. On his 

 way home in 1589 the Portuguese ship in which he sailed 

 was compelled to stay at the Azores. He stayed there 

 for two years ; and it is to this accident that we owe his 

 vivid picture of the last fight of the Revenge. His 

 books describing the routes to India, and the various 

 lands of the East, were printed in 1595 and 1596. An 

 English translation appeared in 1598. The English 

 editor, in his preface, believes that readers will give close 

 attention to " the great provinces, puissant cities, and 

 unmeasurable islands of the Indies." " I do not doubt, 

 but yet I do most heartily pray a wish that this poor 

 translation may work in our English nation a further 

 desire and increase of honour over all countries of the 

 world by means of our wooden walls." The riches of 

 the Eastern world, and the vicious weakness of the Spanish- 



