90 MAPS AND THEIR MAKERS 



service of Spain, and it has been suggested that they were in 

 Seville partly to discuss the question, v^hich the success of the 

 voyage would raise acutely, of whether the Moluccas lay on 

 the Portuguese or the Spanish side of the line of demarcation. 

 They were then referred to as * 'pilots of much renown", and 

 five years later, the Emperor Charles V was endeavouring to 

 induce them to enter his service. This attempt failed, and in 

 1528 they were awarded pensions by the King of Portugal. In 

 1551, Jorge, who continued to produce charts, was described 

 as ''examiner in the science and art of navigation". Later he 

 fell on evil days, for in 1572 he was said to be "sick, old and 

 poor". 



The fact that the Moluccas, the principal source of the 

 oriental spice trade, lay near to the Spanish-Portuguese 

 demarcation line in the opposite hemisphere had a stimulating 

 effect upon the study of cosmology and cartography. Both sides 

 were naturally anxious to prove that the islands lay in their 

 sphere, and the issue was sufficiently close, given the means at 

 the disposal of the protagonists, to ensure that the problem 

 was thoroughly discussed with the aid of the latest charts. In 

 the western hemisphere, the line of Tordesillas was the meridian 

 of 46° 37' W. of Greenwich, so that in the eastern hemisphere 

 it fell on the meridian 133° 23' E. As the Moluccas are in 

 approximately 127° 30' E., and the Portuguese sphere lay west 

 of this meridian, the islands were about 6° inside it. Bearing 

 this in mind we may trace the evolution of the cartography of 

 the Indian Ocean and the Eastern Islands from its first blend 

 of ascertained fact and native reports to the completion of 

 relatively accurate charting. It is noticeable that the chart 

 makers hardly indulged at all in conjecture about what was 

 unknown to themselves, or set down the traditional outlines. 

 Their charts are a combination of first-hand knowledge and 

 a restrained use of native information. 



The earliest of these Portuguese charts which has survived 

 dates from about 1510. Nothing is now known of the circum- 

 stances of its construction or the name of the cartographer. The 

 chart has two scales of leagues and a scale of latitude from 

 60° S. to 60° N., and is provided with a system of compass 

 roses and direction lines. The representation of the coasts of 



