INDONESIA. 67 



and their conquests have been the work of one or another isolated group. 

 Numerous petty Malay states have thus been founded, but the race has created 

 no great empires. The diversity presented by their domain, divided into a 

 thousand little insular mother countries, is thus reflected in their historic evo- 

 lution. 



But the political unity, which has failed to be spontaneously developed, is 

 being accomplished under foreign supremacy. The Europeans, who have occu- 

 pied the whole of America, two-thirds of Asia, and one-half of Africa, have 

 also made themselves masters of the Eastern Archipelago. A single European 

 power, and one of the least importance in a military sense, dominates almost 

 exclusively in this vast insular world comprised between Indo-China and Aus- 

 tralia. 



Historic Retrospect. 



Under the guidance of Arab pilots, the Portuguese navigators and Italian 

 travellers appeared early in the sixteenth century in the Sunda waters, and in 

 1511, Albuquerque, already master of the great city of Malacca, secured for his 

 nation the political preponderance in the Malay world. The very next year the 

 first consignment of nutmegs was shipped, in the Banda group, direct for Lisbon. 

 In order more rapidly to exjilore every part of their new domain, the Portuguese 

 resolved that all vessels, whether Malay, Chinese, or Javanese, trading with 

 Malacca, should henceforth be commanded by a European captain. In this way 

 the European mariners in a few years became familiar with the labyrinth of 

 Indonesian maritime routes, thus securing for themselves the monopoly of the spice 

 trade between the Moluccas and Lisbon. 



Doubtless the Spaniards, led by Magellan, soon appeared on the scene, in their 

 turn claiming the exclusive right to the possession of the coveted " Spice Islands." 

 In virtue of Alexander YI.'s famous bull, dividing the world recently dis- 

 covered, or yet to be discovered, between the two Iberian powers, to Portugal 

 fell all the lands situated in the far East. But Spain on her part claimed these 

 same lands, as lying in the far West beyond the New World, and to put an end 

 to these conflicts the Portuguese were fain to redeem by purchase the islands in 

 dispute. 



Of these they remained peaceful possessors for nearly a century ; but in 1596 

 the Dutch flag, which had been excluded by Philip II. from the direct trade with 

 Lisbon, had already discovered the road to the East. The broad-beamed Dutch 

 vessels made their appearance before Malacca and helped themselves to the spices 

 of the native factories. Such was the commercial enterprise inspired by the two 

 brothers Houtman, who bore the Portuguese a grudge for their imprisonment in 

 Lisbon, that within seven years the Amsterdam and Antwerp shij)pers had 

 equipped fifteen fleets for the Eastern Archipelago, comprising altogether sixty- 

 five vessels. In 1600 the new arrivals secured a strip of territory in Sumatra, and 

 in 1610 they obtained a footing in Java, where they erected a fort, afterwards 



