THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OE ART
THE AGE OF EXPLORATION
Pictures of explorers wko sought new routes for Eastern trade is found the 'Sf.i- World on the uay, of rulers who urged them on, of phies they visited & of the treasures they found in the East
NEW YORK 1942 THE U.E OF EXPLORATION
The exploration of the world has not been confined to any one period, but has been rather a continuous process of discovering and forgetting, of forming relationships and breaking them—relation- of conquest, of trade, of culture. Today, however, the period of expansion east and west, from the fifteenth through the iteenth century, it generally called the "Age of Exploration." This expansion grew out of the need of the countries of northern and urope to find .1 direct way of trading with the E; pices had been borne by caravan across the plains of Asia and carried bv ships through the Black or the Red Sea ur the Persian Gulf, finally reaching Mediterranean ports. But after the fall of the Roman empire long-distance commerce gradually c< n the knowl edge of distant lands grew dim; the belief that the world was round, common among educated men of Roman days, was almost forgotten, and geographers frightened mariners with descriptions of abysses at the world 'ilgrimi and crusaders, however, kept alive or r me knowledge of the nearer East, and the middle of the thirteenth century saw a brilliant, though brief, re vival of knowledge of the Orient. The Mongol emperort, who then ruled in China, Persia, and eastern Europe, had no strong re ligious bias, and encouraged foreign visitors and trade. Marco Polo's narrative of his travels m China and other Eastern lands is the out standing record of this revival of Eastern relations. But Europ opportunity for closer ties with the East was soon over, for the Mongol empire was overthrown in China in 1 16K bv the Ming * Dynasty, which was unfavorable to foreigners, and in the fifteenth century eastern Europe fell into the hands of the Ottoman Turks. The Turks did not break off trade between Europe and the East, but they found it profitable to deal with one well-organized powc able to pay heavy duties in order to hold a monopoh of the essential
CD f spice trade. This power was Marco Polo's city-state of Venice, which had a long history of relationships with the East, and had been able to build up a trade monopoly and hold it by altemal fighting and bribing the Turks. The rest of Europe had to find new ways to get to the East or fight for the old ones, and so European let out to explore unknown oceans. The result was not only the finding of new routes to the East, but the discovery of a New World in the West. This period of expansion produced, in Europe, I not only explorers, traders, and colonizers, but also artists and writers whose work matched the spacious stature of their times. How the influenced by the West during these centuries is a story too long and attempt. The foundations for ocean exploration were laid by Henry the J igator, prince of Portugal, who built up Portuguese sea power in the early fifteenth century, training seamen and pilots and send- lng expeditions down the African coast. Henry did not live to see his countrymen reach the tip of Africa, for it was not until 1487- '488 that Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope. In 14c^7-1 4(^8 another Portuguese, Vasco da Gama, followed the course around the Cape an 1 crossed the Indian Ocean to Calicut on the west coast of India. His were the first European ships to make this Voyage, and he set the ocean course to the East which has been followed in general ever since, except for \csscls routed through the Sue/ CinA after its opening in 1869. In the sixteenth centurv Portugal was the chief sea power in the ! ncn captured the spice trade from Venice, whose pi >s the chief port for European commerce fell to Lisbon. Portuguese trading centers were set up throughout the East, in India, J.na, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, the Moluccas or Spice Islands, and at Macao on the Chinese coast. The Portuguese even reached Japan before the middle of the centurv and established trade relations there which lasted almost a hundred years. The capital of thisj inpire in the 1 ioa, on the west coast of India. Meanwhile, the Spanish explorers, led by Columbus, sought a way to the East by sailing west. The only troubles with this plan were the size of the world—far greater than Columbus had esti mated—and the existence of an unknown continent in the way. Columbus died still believing that he had found India, or perhaps some land on the outskirts of China, but Europe soon began to realize that this was not an Asiatic land but a new continent. This was presently given the name of America, in honor of America! Vespucius, who had been among the first to declare that it was a land hitherto unknown. The old name of "India" lingered long enough, however, to be applied to the natives of the New World and to the islands known as the West Indies. The silver and gold of the New World interested Spain more than the trade with the East which she had set out for, and on the whole she left Eastern discoveries and commerce to Portugal. A great exception to this policy was Magellan's voyage around the world in search of a western route to the Spice Islands in 1519- 1522. A Portuguese by birth, Magellan had visited these islands by the route around Africa, but he believed that a more direct way might be found by a passage through the new continent to the ocean which Balboa had discovered in 1513. Portugal was not in terested in this scheme, and Spain finally accepted Magellan's offer to find such a route. The result was the first circumnavigation of the world. The explorer found the passage he sought—now called the Strait of Magellan—but the voyage was so long that as a spice route from Europe to the East it had little value. What was of im portance was the revelation of .1 route across the Pacific between the New World and the East. On this voyage, Magellan discovered the Philippines, where he was killed by natives in 1521, leaving one ship, the Victoria, to complete the voyage back to Spain. The importance of the Philippines was not recognized at once, but before the century was over, Manila, on the island of Luzon, had become Spain's trading center in the East. The Portuguese success in establishing a base for Eastern trade :'t Macao on the Chinese coast in 1557 encouraged the Spanish to set up a similar center, and Manila was founded in 1571. To this rival port the Chinese brought their wares to be ret hipped in Spanish vessels across the Pacific to the New World. Direct trade between Manila and Europe was not encouraged, and the New World trade was severely limited, because the new continent had only silver to offer in exchange for Eastern wares, and Spain had no mind to sec too much of this go eastward instead of into her °wn treasury. The trade, however, was immensely profitable to the merchants of Manila, and one galleon a \car was allowed : between it and the city of Acapulco oil the Pacific coast of Mexico —the only port in the Spanish New World permitted direct trade with the East. These galleons carried not only cloves and cinnamon and pepper, but also silks and velvets from China, "brocades of gold 3>id silver upon silk," muslins, carpets, porcelain, and gems, to be sold at the annual Acapulco fair. The English and Dutch were late in the field of mean explora tion and trade, although the English king, Henry VII, had sun John Cabot to the New World in I 497 to seek a passage to China. I hrough most of the sixteenth centurv both countries spent much time exploring Arctic seas in the attempt to find a northwi northeast passage to China which would be better than the route ••round Africa and closed to Portuguese competition. Meanwhile their merchants traded contentedly enough at Lisbon. By the end °f the sixteenth century, however, they had to find a way to trade '°r themselves, for the crowns of Spain and Portugal were united in 1 580, and in 1 590 Spain closed the port of Lisbon to both England •'"d Holland, with whom she was at war. They met this situation by organizing two of the greatest trading companies the world has ever known—the English and Dutch East India Companies. Ehc English Company was chartered by Queen Elizabeth in 1600, and the Dutch was founded in 1602. Both Companies soon settled Hope, During the levenl Dutch replaced the Por- • he sea tr.i I power in the East Indies. vhile they kept on with theil northern route. I Englishman H hrough ild for the Dutch Easi Indi a Comi for him and their claim ti norland. The English, during : their a,tcntion ! New World and building up the with India which resulted in I empire in , U)IK m n_u|,. w;tj, pcrsja> where the;. A|Kj thcy were eager to trade with I ch«ir Hakluyt,"t. ample Of our woolen doth, the naturall com mod, lie of tl ie." The English I founded a trading station in Japan in l6l Although the route around \l
tut sought a notthwc l() the
recalled from Dutch service, lost his life in the |,.,y Ram. while on tl ireh. In both the western and md laid the
foundations for colonic [„ the West, |,n!
settled in 1607, and Plymouth by the Pilgrim, i„ ,620, | landed in 1630; and the English 1 »utch in 1664, renaming it New York. In i|„ | Company obtained trade rights at Sural in 16 I the Persians expel the Portuguese from Hormuz in l62J, obtained land grants at Madra, in 1639, an Calcutta in .690. Erench explorers and traders at first concentrated on the New World rather than the East. By the end of the seventeenth century France claimed both the present Canada and the Mississippi Valley through the explorations of Cartier, Champlain, Marquette and Joliet, and La Salle. In 1664 the French East India Company was founded, but it was less successful than the English and the Dutch, although the French won footholds in India and Indo-Chi.ia. If French traders had, on the whole, less power in the East than those of England and Holland, France perhaps gained more real knowl edge of the culture of China than did most European countries, for her Jesuit missionaries were well-educated men, who were favorably received, especially at court, and they kept their country informed. China and Japan were the ultimate goal of all countries trading with the East, although the Spice Islands and India were the most immediate aim. From the days of Marco Polo, Cathay and Cipango, or China and Japan, were thought to be lands of fabulous wealth. The silk of China had been prized as far back as Roman days, and porcelain finally became so much in demand that European potters could not rest until, early in the eighteenth century, they found the secret of its manufacture. Lacquer from both China and Japan was very popular and was imitated in Europe under the name of "japanning." Although Japan remained, in general, closed to Euro peans, her wares could be bought through Chinese and Portuguese merchants, and through the Dutch East India Company, which had founded a trading center there in 1609. These Dutch merchants were the only Europeans allowed even a limited trade with Japan after the expulsion of the Portuguese in 1538. The Portuguese were the first to reach China, and for a long time the only Europeans allowed a permanent settlement there. They arrived at Canton in I 51 I, but gained no established foot hold until 1557, when they were permitted to settle at Macao. European merchants might trade under strict supervision at Canton, but Macao remained for three hundred years the only place where they were allowed to live all the year round, and the only place where foreign women might come. A few ambassadors, missionaries, and hardy travelers reached Peking and other cities, but Macao and Canton remained the only places in China where foreigners as a whole had any contact with China until the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 opened four additional porta.Tea was introduced into Europe from China in the seventeenth century, and rapidly became the chief cargo of East India Company ships,especially those of England. But the richness of this period cannot be measured in trade alone, in silks or spices or porcelain. These were the centuries of the Ren aissance, and the new lands and customs discovered, explorers, rulers, and their deeds were as much a part of the time as the new interest in ancient Greece and Rome. Titian and Velazquez painted the Spanish rulers of the New World; Rembrandt pictured the admirals and merchantsof Holland who built her sea power,and Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch left almost photographic records of the houses in which this nation of merchant-seamen lived, their walls hung with mapsand their Hoorsand tablesstrewn with rugs from Persia orTarkcy. The literature of the time shows even more directly the new in terests abroad in the world. The Portuguese poet Camoens used the theme of exploration in his masterwork, The Lusiads, so called from Lusus, a mythical ancestor of the Portuguese. This ei Vasco da Gama's first voyage to India was published in I 572, when Portuguese power in the East was at its height and no one could foresee the irony in the In "With ancient titles and immortal fame The hero band adorns their monarch's name: pters and crowns beneath his feet thee ]a\ , And the wide East is doomed to Lusian sway." Shakespeare wrote no play on the theme of exploration but his characters move in a spacious world and take for granted argosies "Erom Tripolis, from Mexico and England, Erom Lisbon, Barbarv, and India." In The Men\ Wives of Windsor Ealstaff says of two rivals for his attention, "They shall be my East and West Indies, and 1 will trade to them both." Milton is outstanding among English poets for the romantic richness of his allusions to the East: ". . . Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Cam, And Samarkand by Oxus, Timer's Throne," and " them who sail Beyond the Cape of Hoge and now are past Mozambique, off at sea." Literature of no mean quality, devoted exclusively to voyages and journeys, began to pour from European presses in the second half of the sixteenth century. The Dutch traveler and explorer Linschoten, who lived in Goa from 1583 to 1589, gathered ma terial from Portuguese traders there, and described the East and •ts trade in volumes which were soon translated into English, Ger man, French, and Latin. The Englishman Hakluyt collected travel accounts from records and from voyagers themselves—the famous '••'ires, which were first published in 1589. His German con temporary, De Bry, produced illustrated editions of voyages, re- Using or adapting many original illustrations from earlier works. Ambassadors and merchants traveling to the courts of India and Persia left volumes rich in descriptions of these ancient civilizations. Champlaln's accounts of his expeditions in .North America and Captain John Smith's narratives of his adventures in Virginia and along the New England coast are famous accounts of exploration in 'he .New World. These books not only had a wide sale, but also an •remediate influence upon further exploration and travel. In his own ''y^Res, Linschoten told of the effect of volumes written by earlier explorers: "Being young," he wrote, "and living idleyc in my native Countrie, sometimes applying my selfe to the reading of Histories and straunge adventures, wherein I tooke no small delight, I found my minde so much addicted to sec and tr.iv.iile into straunge countries, thereby to seeke some adventure, that in the end Itisfie my selfe, I determined for a time to leave my native Countrie and mv friends." MARC;ARKT R. SCHKKKR I. HENRY THE NAVIGATOR, IJ94-I460
Miniature from manuscript of Azurara's Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, XV century. National Library, Paris. (Methuen & Company)
Henry, prince of Portugal, who never sat upon the throne, was one of the greatest builders of sea power the world his ever known. He employed the best navigators and map makers to instruct pilots and prepare charts for ocean voyages. He encouraged the building of ships fit for long and stormy voyages, and trained the Portuguese fishermen to be skilled seamen. These ships and seamen he sent farther and farther down the coast of Africa, where they set up a lively trade in gold dust, ostrich plumes, and hides, and prepared the way for the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and the dis covery of a water route to India. The Portuguese poet Camocns, in his epic, The Lusiads, written about a century after Prince Henry's death, refers to him as
"Henry, the chief, who first by Hcav'n inspir'd, To deeds unknown before, the sailor fir'd; The conscious sailor left the sight of shore, And dar'd the ocean, never plough'd before. The various wealth of cv'ry distant land He bade his fleets explore, his fleets command."
AGE C) XV- \\i
4t PLOR I O N
I » tv 1 ^>N 3- VASCO DA GA.MA, ABOUT I460-I524
Painting by an unknown artist, perhaps XVI century. Hall of Honors, Lisbon Geographical Society, Lisbon. (Hakluyt Society)
A Portuguese, Vasco da Gama, was the first European to make the ocean voyage to India and open the sea route from Europe to the East. In 1487-1488, Bartholomew Diaz, another Portuguese, had rounded the Cape of Good Hope, but before Portugal was ready to follow up this discovery Columbus had made two voyages west ward, for Spain, and reported that he had found Asia. Portugal, however, did not turn her attention from the eastward route— some think she knew already that Asia was not to be reached easily by sailing west. In 1497 Vasco da Gama set out to find his way to the East around Africa accompanied part way by Diaz, who had designed some of the ships. In 1 498 da Gama crossed the Indian Ocean to Calicut, on the west coast of India, returning to Lisbon in 1499. The next year the Portuguese sent out a number of ships to establish their trade in the East. Unlike many explorers, da Gama remained in royal favor, and was finally sent as VicerOJ of India to Goa, where he died soon after. Little more than fifty years after da Gama's first voyage to India the Portuguese poet Camocns made it the theme of his epic, The Lusiads.
4. THE MARKET AT GOA
Detail of folding plate after a design from Linschoten's Voyag* to the East Indies, first Dutch edition, Amsterdam, l 596. (New York Public Library)
Goa was the capital of the Portuguese empire in the East, and its opulent trade rapidly earned it the name of "Golden Goa." The city is rich in European associations, for among its viceroys was \ asco da (jama, who died there in 1524, and in one of its churches Saint Francis Xavier is buried. The Dutch traveler Linschoten, who lived there from 1583 to 1589, wrote of it: "The Citie of Goa is the Metropolitan or chiefe Cittie of all the Oriental Indies, where the Portingales have their traffique" with "Bengal.!, Pegu, Malacca, Cambaia, China, and everie way . . . also in Goa there is holden a daylic assemblie or meeting together, as well of the Citizens and Inhabitants, as of the natives throughout India, and of the countries bordering on the same, ... in the principal streete of the Citie . . . There are certain crvcrs appointed by the Citie for ve purpose." Among the goods sold at Got he listed: "Arabian horses, all kinds of spices and dryed drugges, sweet gummes, and such like things," and said that they "not oncly sell all kindes of Silkes, Sattins, Damasks, and curious works of Porselyne from China and other places, but all manner of wares of velvet, Silke, Sattin and such like brought out of Portingale." Early in the seventeenth century the Dutch captured the Eastern trade from Goa, and although they did not take over the city its glory declined rapidly. By the middle of the century the French merchant Tavcrnicr was speaking of "the ancient Power of the Portugals in India." -V Lit «"«• fl a a ii 5- LtIS DE Ho
Miniature pain- lia, by an Eastern artist whose name IS signed i: ript at the lower left, 1581. (Collection of ;uez de R
The Portuguese poet ( 1 best remembered for his epic, Th* Lusiads, published in 1572, which celebr.u Gaflrf Portuguese exploration in the East. The title- of this p> vthical an of the Portuguese, means simply "the Portuguese." Camoen life, fighting in Portugal's campaigns in Africa, during he lost an eye, and livil e time in the Portuguese trading center at Goo, where he h . llent opportunity to learn at firsthand about tl rt of The Ltuisdl *l as perhaps in V 'he Chinese coast. Camocns begins his epic in the style of Virgil, saying that he means to eclebt
•.;» and the heroes, who, f: Thro* seas where tail v*
• prowess more than huir :hc fair kingdoms What WJ: what dangers | 1 their toils at I
6. THE PORTUGUESE SETTLEMENT OF MACAO 1N CHI MA
Plate VIII from De Bry's Voyages, East Indies Series, Part VIII, first German edition, Erankfort on the Main, 1606. (.New York Public Library)
Macao lies on a peninsula running southwest from the island of Heungshan (which is practically part of the mainland), in the estuary of the Pearl River. One seventeenth-century writer called it "a little hanging island, fixed to a greater." The Portuguese dried cargo there early in the sixteenth century, and were given permis sion to settle in 1557. Linschoten'1 description, as gathered from the Portuguese at Goa between I 583 and 1589, gives a picture of and its trade within thirtv vears of its founding. "The Hand and Towne of Mach.ui," he says, "is inhabited by Portingales, together with the natural] borne Countrimen of China. They trarfickc with the men of Canton, from whence the Chi naves bring all their marchandiaes, and resort thcther to buy wares, but the Portingals may not goe thither .... They suffer the Portingals to chusc a Eactor among themselves who in all their names is licenced to goe to Canton, there to buy what thej desire: but in the night time hee must lye in the Suburbs . . . thither commeth a ihippc ycarely out of India. . . . And from Makau the saidc thippe s.iv leih to fapen, and there dischargeth, and then returneth again to Makau, and from thence to Malacca, and so to (ioa." Later the English and Dutch and other European merchants established headquarters at Macao. : 3K**» >* 7- THE CAPTURE OF A PORTUGI ESE SHII> BV in K D ENGLISH IN i HK SIR \I r OF MALACCA IN 16o2
XII from De Br\' I VII, lition, Frankfort on the Main, 1605. (I Public Library)
The ( ' lacca on tl ' Peninsula controlled the Strait ilacca between Siam [Thailand] and Sumatra fore very important for .\nv country trading with 1 he- Dutch trav hoten wrote of it in his Voyage to th. , published in 1 596: "Mallacca ... is the staple tor all 1 iboats; it hath great trat dealing with all ll which sayle to and from China, the Molucos, Bands, the 11.< Sumatra, and all the Hands bordering the I Sian [Siam I, Pegu, Bengala, l lei, and the In Portuguese captured V n IC.II, and it bee. i only 1, in Ind nter for their Eastern commerce. The Dutch, who began to gain control of trade in the F.asl Indies at the f the sixteenth century, ptured the city in 1 '44 1. Portuguese control in the Kit was onlj t remembered glor) .. when the French merchant and traveler 'Eavernier wrote, about the middle of the seventeenth century: "Before the Hol landers had brought down the power of the Portugal) in India, there was nothing to be seen at (io.i but Magnificence and Riches: but the Dutch having every where got their trade out of their hands, they have lost their springs of Gold and Silver, and are fallen from their former splendor."
8. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, I45I-I506
Painting by Sebastiano del Piombo, 1485-1547. Probably copied from an older painting or drawing and thought to be a fairly accurate likeness. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
After four voyages to the New World, Columbus died, still believ ing that he had found Asia. An abridgement by one of his com panions, Las Casas, of Columbus's own journal of the first voyage- is full of references to the lands described bv Marco Polo, which Columbus thought were close at hand. On October 23, 1492, he- noted: "I desired to set out to-day for the island of Cuba, which I think must be Cipangu [Japan], according to the signs these people make indicative of its size and riches." And later: "I am still re solved to go to the mainland and the city of Guisay ( Marco Polo's Quinsay, or Hangchow ] and to deliver the letters of Your High nesses to the Grand Can." All these lands were part of "India," in the broad sense of the term used bv Columbus and others of his time. But though Columbus never believed he had found a new continent, many people did; among them, Americus Vcspucius, who wrote an account of his voyage along the Brazilian coast in I 501-1502, stressing the fact that this was a new world. This ac count, and letters of Vespucius, led the geographer Waldseemuller to give the name "America" to the western land mass on a map pub lished in 1 507. g. FERDINAND MAGELLAN, 1480-15:1
Copy from a painting by .in unknown sixteenth-century artist, in the L'fhzi, Florence. (New York Historical Society)
Magellan, a Portuguese by birth, believed that a better passage by sea might be found through the New World to the Moluo Islands, than the long route around \fii.i. When this scheme was rejected by the Portuguese king, Magellan renounced his citizenship in order to feel more free to offer his services to Spam. In Spain his proposal was accepted., and he set out from there in 1519 with five ships. In I 520 he reached the passage at the tip of South America now called by his name, sailing through this strait to the Pacific. After much suffering the parte discovered the Ladrones, or Marianne Islands, and also the Philippines. In the latter Magellan was killed in 1521 during a skirmish with the na- 1 kept on, nevertheless, until they reached the Moluccas, where one of the two remaining ships had to be aban doned. Th round Africa, arriving in Seville in 1522 with a cargo of spices which paid foi lition. She was the first ship to circumnavigate the world. The passage- through the Strait of Magellan was too long and difficult tc practical route from Europe to the Spice Islands, but the voyage laid the foundation for trade in the Pacific between the New World and the East.
IO. THE ISLAND OF TIDORE IN THE MOLUCCAS OR SPICE ISLANDS
Plate VII from De Bry's Voyages, East Indies Series, Part VIII, first German edition, Frankfort on the Main, 1606. (.New York Public Library)
The volcano which almost fills urn end of the island of Tidore towers above the Portuguese fort and ships which the Duti attacking in this picture. The Dutch traveler Linschoten referred W this volcano in his Vojagt to the East Indies, published in 1596, when he wrote, "In this Hand are found fierie hills." He further noted "the Portingales" two forts "in T.irn.ite and Tydorc, . . . where they trafficke from Malacca & out of India . . . thi have no other spice than cloves, but in so great abu it appeareth, by them the whole world is filled therewith." Tidore, like its neighbor Tcnute, was the seat of an ancient sultanate, and became one of the main ports for the Portugi trade early in the sixteenth century. The Dutch replaced the Portugu control early in the th centurv, and the English made a few attempts to compete with the Dutch. The ship marked (z) in this print is described as "an English ship under Henry Middleton," who was seeking cloves for the English East India Company. Milton alludes in Paradise Lost to
lose sailing from Bengali, or the i Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs."
II. THE HARBOR AND CITY OF MANILA
Plate XVI from De B , New World Series, Part XI, first German edition, Frankfort on the Main, l6lQ. (New York Pal ' - Libl >ry)
Manila was made the headquarters of Spa I rrnmcn! and trade in the Phil:| ids had been discovered •'Ian in 1 •; 21 1 paid little attention to them until :,t of Portugal's trading center at Macao On the 57. Then in 1564, Spaniards from ' egan Lie the Philippines. They found'.it hand .111 excellent way for trading with other Eastern lands, foi Chin eager to bring to Manila the wealth of n< ;uer, porcelain, gem I reshipped ear from Ms ipulco on Mi Itico—for in spile of central location Manila became a link between the East and the I ti r foi world-wide trade. In the 1 ity rivaled the Portuguese Macao, and of (i!.u • Monfal "n 0 many archipelagoes,— the key to thi ind ever rich commerce of the Orient." I Dutch, fully appreciating the location of the Philippines for t: attacked them more than once. Eli ihowi Dutch ami Oriental ships lying outside Manila Bay, Spanish ship (n) behind the headland of Cavite, and the island of Corregidor, here called Ma ), dividing the entrance to the bay. The city of la (c) lies at the upper right.
12. THE CITY OF ACAPULCO IN MEXICO
Plate XIII from De Bry's Voyages, New World Series, Part XI, first German edition, F'rankfort on the Main, 1619. (New York Public Library)
Acapulco on the P >,ist of Mexico was the only port in New- Spain permitted to trade directly with the East. One ship a year :o this city from the Spanish trading center of Manila, carry ing spices, rugs, lacquer, cottons, gems, porcelain and, above all, silks, in exchange for silver from the New World mines. The first galleon sailed in 1565; the last in 1815, although by this time the port had become comparatively insignificant. A Spanish 1 wrote to Philip II in 1 572: "A coming to be the first port for the trade with the Philippine- ••(' its nearness to the City of Mexico." 'Ehe goods brought from Manila were sold at the annual Acapulco fair, to which merchants traveled from M City bv what was known as the "China Road" to buy wares from the East. Other ports tried to have this exclusive trading right transferred to them, but this was never done, partly because it was easier to go on with arrangements as they were anil parti) b of the excellent harbor at Acapulco. There the inner harbor is both sheltered jnd deep, close in to shore, making it .1 fine haven for heavily laden galleons.
1J. THE LAKE AND CITY OF MEXICO
Plan from the Latin translation of Cortes's PraecLira, Nuremberg, 1524. (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
Three years after the City of Mexico was destroyed by the Span iards, this first printed plan of the city was published, as some Spaniard remembered it, and sketched or described it for the illus trator. It shows Tenochtitlan and Tlaltclolco, the two communities that composed the island citv, lving in the lake filled with boats and I by causeways and aqueducts. Most of the buildings l
14- MINING SILVER IN PERU
Plate III from De Bry's Voyages, New World Series, Part IX, first German edition, Frankfort on the Main, 1601. (New York Public Library)
This picture shows the artist's idea of work in the richest silver mine known in the late sixteenth century—the "Silver Mountain" of Potosi in Peru, which he interprets literally. The mine was dis covered in 1545. It was worked in two shifts, says the author, one by day and one by night. The miners carried the metal on their ,ip long ladders that had to be 'eld on to with both hands. Only the leader had a light, which was bound to his thumb. Three carriers were always on the upward ladder and three on the down ward, with halts for rest on the way. Above ground are pictured 'he Peruvian beasts of burden, laden with precious metal which was taken to Panama, then carried across the isthmus to Spanish ports on the Atlantic, and from there shipped back to Spain.
15- PHILIP II, KING OF SPAIN, IC/56-I598
Sculpture from the workshop of Leone Lconi, Italian, XVI century. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
When Philip II came to the throne, he was ruler not only of Spain, the richest and most powerful country in Europe, but also of the Netherlands and lands in Italy. In 1580 Philip inherited the crown of Portugal but promised to interfere as little as possible with Portuguese F'.astern trade. He married Mary Tudor, Queen of England, but she died without children, and Philip had been forced to give up the right to succeed her. In 1590 he tried to claim the throne of France for his daughter by .1 French princess, but with no better result. The Netherlands, too, were unwilling to be ruled for the benefit of Spain, with whom they differed in re ligion and in ideas of government. In 1568 they revolted, and although their independence was not finally recognized until I 648, they fought Spain bitterly, and rapidly built up a rival trade which ended the Portuguese-Spanish control in the East. England, too, under M.cr-. \ successor, Elizabeth, became Spain's cncmv, helping the Dutch and harrying Spanish ships and colonies. The destruc tion of the Spanish Armada in I 588 by the English fleet and bv .1 heavy storm opened the way for England and Holland to control Eastern trade and acquire colonies in the New World. Despite the silver and gold from Mexico and South America which were pour ing into Spain, the wars with England, Holland, and France left her poorer at the end of Philip's reign than at the beginning. v^ * l6. ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ENGLAND, I558-1603
Painting by an unknown English artist, about 1590. (The Metro politan Museum of Art)
England entered with full force into the field of exploration and world trade during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Her predecessor, Mary Tudor, wife of Philip II of Spain, had encouraged overland trade with Persia and Turkey and attempts to find a northeast pas sage to China, but had avoided competition with Spain and Portugal in their established sea routes around Africa. Elizabeth continued to encourage the search for a new sea route, and chartered the ant Company for trade with Turkey ,uiA the Near East. But more important was her defiance of Philip II of Spain. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in I 588 left England supreme upon tin ept for the growing power of Holland. When Philip retaliated by closing to both these countries the Portuguese port of Lisbon, then under Spain's control, England was ready to compete with Spanish and Portuguese shipping on the route around the Cape of (Jood Hope. In 1600 Elizabeth chartered the famous English East India Company, and the uninterrupted flow of English commerce I with the East began. Among the many explorers of Elizabeth's reign were Sir Francis Drake, who sailed west around the world, and Anthony Jcnkinson, who journeyed lit to Persia, where Shah Tahmasp ruled, and to Russia, whose czar, Ivan the Terrible, I suitor for the queen's hand.
If. SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, ABOUT I54O-I596
F.ngraving probably- by Hondius, late XVI century. (British Mu seum, London)
This engraving shows Drake as a popular hero after his vov age- around the world. Drake set out from Plymouth in 1577, sailed along the African coast and across the Atlantic, then down the coast of South America and through the Strait of Magellan. He then bore north along the Pacific coasts of South and North America, landing near San F'rancisco Bay, where he claimed the realm for F'.ngland under the name of New Albion. Sailing westward across the Pacific he visited the East Indies, where he was entertained by the Sultan of Ternate, and finally returned to England around the Cape of Good Hope in I 580. Queen Elizabeth was so impressed by this first English voyage around the world that she knighted Drake aboard his flagship the Golden Hind, and ordered it to be pre served as a worthy rival of Magellan's Victoria. 1 he Spanish in the Philippines were much alarmed by the appearance of an English man in the Pacific, and feared danger to their own galleons sailing between Acapulco and Manila, especially if the English or Dutch should succeed in finding the fabled "Strait of Anian," a north west passage through North America to the Pacific. In ] 586, there fore, the Philippines petitioned Philip 11 "that China be immedi ately occupied by Spain" to forestall this danger. mumiiiH N'ftLt \ ~^W
,^-A UMi; l8. THE HOME OF THE ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY, LEADENHALL STREET, LONDON, 164H-I
Engraving from a Dutch painting
The F.nglish East India Company, chartered by Queen Elizabeth in 1600 under the name of "The Governour and Company of Merchants of Ixindon Trading into the East Indies," was given the monopoly of English trade with the East. The term "I .1st Indies," pp i to ' Company's tr.i le, covered the region lying east between the Capi Hope and the Strait of Magellan. Since the Company was given authority to govern the land it acquired he course of trade, it thus indirectly laid the foundation for the British empire in the East. Trade monopol inpopular with many English merchants, as the Company was limited to a comparatively few'stockholders. The trad< e merchants," wh the regulation led bv the Company "inter- lop plied in the late sixteenth centurv to unau thorized merchants competing with thi M .nipaiiv's trade ind the N into the nine nturv, when they v\ tally abolished. In If58 the Compam Ived, the British Crown took over i the empire begun by trad. inder the rule of the English queen. The I Company 00 upied I buildings, including Crosby Hall, but the headquarters in lenhall Street, rebuilt in 1726, where Charles Lamb W clerk from 1792 to 1825, housed the Company for the greater part of its existence. HIT H VM( DEW
COMPACNII IN
THE CXD EAST INDIA rfO^nN UKDtrmi JTHV-T [6^8 TO 17-26 19- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, I564-I616
English painting, about 1609. (Shakespeare Memorial, Stratford- on)
Shakespeare, the greatest of English drama; born into 3 US and adventurous age. He lived when Elizabeth and James I reigned in England, while Akbar the Great and Jahangir ruled in India, Shah Abbas in Persia, and Wan Li in less-known China. His time was marked by such events as Drake's circumnavigation of the the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the founding of the English East India Company, the adventures of Raleigh's unsuc- colonies at Roanoke, and the first permanent English settle ment at Jamestown in 1607. Shakespeare's plays show this expan sion of world in- li in the boundless freedom of imagina tion and action of the characters and in their allusions. Malvolio, in '• tgkt, "does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies." Shylock, in The , remarks of Antonio, "He hath an argosy- bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies: I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico." And in Measure for • innient, "They are not China dishes, but very- good dishe that porcelain was already becoming known in F ngland by the name of the land from which it came.
20. JOHN" MILTON, 1608-1674
Engraving by William Faithorne, dated 1670. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Milton's poems are rich in imagery drawn from the East. Some think that the poet considered writing an epic of English explora tion, and that notes made for this were used in his short history, via: or Relations of Muscovia a; far as hath he en discovered ftisA VoyagOS . . . and of other less known countries lying Eastward of Russia a' far as Cathay. Among sources for this history, Milton listed the "Journals of Sir Hugh Willoughby," the "Dis course of Richard Chancelor," "Several voyages of Jenkinson, and "Papers of Mr. Hackluit." The first thl voyages or overland travels through Persia in quest of a northeastern route to China. Milton referred to this vain search in Paradise 'luding to the collision of
M in Itain of ice, that stop the imagined way Beyond PetSOrs eastward to the rich haian coast."
An outstanding example of the influence of the East on the poet's imagination is the description of Satan in Paradise Lost:
"High Ofl a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the got. with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold." 6% ) "^oCW^ - XI. WINTERING IN THE ARCTIC WHILE SEEKING A NORTHEAST PASSAGE, I596-I597
Plate XLVII from De Bry's Voyages, East Indies Series, Part III, first German edition, Frankfort on the Main, 1599. (New York Public Library)
This picture shows the first Europeans to winter in the Arctic— members of the third expedition of William Barents, a Dutchman who sought a northeast passage to China, but who was forced to abandon ship in the ice and build a hut on the coast of Nova Zembla. The account of the voyage, written by Gcrrit de Veer, one of the expedition, was published in Dutch in 1598 and translated into Fnglish in 1609. De Bry's illustrations, first used in a German edition by Helsius in I 598, show dearly details described by de Veer—the "skie full of stars" in the long Arctic night, the men shivering about the fire, the lamp hung up "to burne in the night time, wherein we used the fat of the beare," the clock which was finally "frozen, and might not goe, although we hung more waight on it than before," the "s.mdglas of 1 z houers" then set up to measure time, and the steam bath which tl urgeon made bathe us in, of a wine pipe, wherein we entered one after the other, and it did us much goode." Only twelve men survived to return to Amsterdam, in two open boats. Barents died soon at the homeward voyage began. In 1871 the remains of the hut were found, together with the clock, weapons, clothing, and other abandoned gear. Among these was a Dutch translation of Mendoza's History and Description of the Great Empire of China—the goal toward which the hardy explorers sought a northern passage by sea.
22. SHIPS OF THE DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY
Etching by Wenzel Ffollar, dated 1647. (The Metropolitan Mu seum of Art)
The Latin inscription on this print calls these vessels ships of the Dutch East India Company, though their construction and gun capacity suggest ships of war. However, the Dutch East Indiamen were armed for protection during their long and dangerous voyages, and the etching gives a good idea of the general type of Dutch shipping at the time when the Dutch East India Company was the leading set power in the East. The ships are beached for repairing and cleaning, and the one at the right is "careened"—laid on her side—for this purpose. Both ships bear the arms of the city of Amsterdam. The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602 and given a monopoly of Dutch trade with the East. It had branches, which were called Chapters, in the chief cities of Holland, with headquarters at Amsterdam, whose Chapter held the most stock. Its activities led directly to the building up of a Dutch empire in the I Indies. Early in the seventeenth century the Dutch broke Portugal's control of Eastern trade, and the Dutch East India Com pany soon became the rival of the English. Both Companies, although they followed the course around Africa, remained inter- d in finding a northern water route to China. It was while look ing for such a passage through the New World in the service of the Dutch Company that Henry Hudson, in I 609, sailed up the river that bears his name. The Dutch East India Company finally went bankrupt during the F'rench Revolutionary Wars .aid ceased to exist in 1798, when the government took over its debts.
\ WITH A WATER JUG
Painting by the Dutch artist Vermeer, 1632-1675. (The Metro polis ;i of Art)
Oriental n in the table in this picture often appear in Dutch paintin] eenth century, when . irkey were among the prized wares im- ! from th . too, like that hanging on the .re frequent in Dutch paintings of the time, as was natural in faring people where trade wish distant parts of the world was growing rapidly, and where all kinds of people were in world geography. The sixteenth-century Dutch traveler Linschoten recalled in a letter how he had longed for travel I i re is no time more wasted," he wrote, "than when a young fellow hangs about his mother's kitchen like a baby, neither knowing what poverty is, nor luxury, nor what is found in the world." And the French merchant and traveler Tavemier, who was born in 1605, wrote of his boyhood: "Tin- daily discourses which Several Learned men had with my Father upon Geographical subjects ... to which, though very young, I was with much delight attentive, inspir'd me betimes with a design to see some part of these Countries which were represented to me in from which I never could keep oil my Eves."
24. A PERSIAN RUG WITH A FLOWER DESIGN
XVI centurv, probably made at Herat in Khurasan. (The Metro politan Museum of Art)
Such rugs as this appear in the paintings of Vermeer and other Euro pean artists of the seventeenth century. The fame of Persian rugs was great, and travelers in the East often referred to them. Lin schoten, who lived in India during the late sixteenth century, wrote that the carpets made in India were "neither so fine nor so good as those that are brought to Ormus out of Persia." William Parry, who was with Sir .Anthony Sheriev in Persia at the end of the sixteenth century, mentioned the "carpeting and silk work, wherein they excel," and said: "The merchandi: j and commodities which Persia y ieldeth are silks, both raw and otherwise; . . . spices, drugs, pearls, and other precious gems, together with carpets of divers kinds." All travelers mention the magnificence of the silk and gold carpets which the Persians used in their palaces. These more magnificent carpets, of course, did not come into ordinary European homes, but were sent as gifts to rulers. The Persians' own feeling about their finest rugs is expressed in the inscription on one such carpet: "Blessed is the carpet which lay during the banquet like a shadow at the feet of the King. It is no carpet, it is a garland of white roses. It is a garden full of tulips and gay flowers, in which the nightingale sings as in her own realm. ... It is a garden where the autumn wind may never find place to linger." Ci Nr9R«4v«^.Th
• • I
2S3Srri33-GP5a®5: 2;. SHAH ABBAS I, I587-I628
Persian miniature painting, XVI-XVII century. (Private Collec tion)
Abbas the Great, a contemporary of Elizabeth and James I of F'.ngland, was one of the most able and energetic of Persian rulers, though not lacking in the cruelty often associated with Oriental monarchs. He was a builder as well as a conqueror, and the mosques, palaces, and gardens of Isfahan, where he made his capital, arc records of his taste. During his reign, Englishmen were employed, especially Sir Anthony and Sir Robert Shcrlcy, to reorganize the Shah's army against his perpetual enemies, the Turks, and also against the Portuguese. In 1622 the Persians and English combined to drive the Portuguese from the port of Hornuiz, which they had held since I 5 I 5, and the English East India Company received trade concessions there as a result. Silks, raw or woven, and rugs were the wares which Europe most desired from Persia, and the French merchant Tavernier wrote of the ruler's interest in this 1 1,, who was a man of great Genius, and a person ot great undertaking, considering that Persia was a barren Country, where there was little trade, and by consequence little Money, re solved to send hi into Europe with raw Silk, so to under stand where the fitl Would arise, to bring Money into his Countrv."
26. THE MEIDAN OR GREAT SQUARE OF ISFAHAN
Built by Shah Abbas I, I 587-1628. (Photograph bv Arthur Upham Pope)
Thomas Herbert, an Englishman traveling in Persia in 1627-1629, said of this great square of Isfahan: "The Maydan is without doubt as spacious, as pleasant and aromatic a market as any in the universe . . . resembling our F'.xchange, or the Place-Roy ale in Paris." The French merchant Tavernier, who was in Persia a little later, wrote of the city and its square: "Nor indeed could Ispahan be accompted other than a Village, before Sha-Abas had conquer'd the Kingdoms of 4Lar and Ormus. But then, admiring so fair a Situation, where he might as well be near the Provinces which he had newly- con quer'd ... he quitted Casbin and Sultany to reside at Ispahan, as in the center of his Empire. . . . The Meydan or great Piazza of Ispahan was the contrivance of the great Sha-Ahas. ... It has build ings upon all the four sides. ... In the middle of the Southern Front stands a Portal with .1 lower upon each side, which leads to )uee, the Gate whereof is cover'd all over with plates of Silver, and it iscertainlv the neatest Portal and fairest Entrance into iosquee of Persia." This Mosque of the Shah, gleaming with tiles of turquoise and ultramarine, rises directly across the square. At the right is the Palace of the Ali Kapu, or High Gate, where Shah Abbas received ambassadors and foreign visitors or watched polo games and other spectacles in the Meidan. Across from this palace, but not visible in the picture, stands the Royal Bazaar of Shah Abbas, with miles of corridors lined by merchants' shops.
27- THE INTERIOR OF A PERSIAN PALACE
Illustration from a manuscript of Nizami's Kli.imsah ("Five Trea sures"), dated I 525. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
This illustration is from the story of Bahrain Gur, who married seven princesses Mtd visited in their palaces on successive days. Each of his wives' dwellings was decorated in a distinctive color. Th* Sandal Palace, where Bahrain Gur visited on Thursdays i here with the king and queen, surrounded by their retinue, seated in a columned chamber opening into a courtyard. Here are most of the features noted by European travelers in the houses of Persian nobles. The lower part of the wall is covered with tiles; the upper part is probably decorated much like that of the palace at Isfahan, described by Thomas Herbert, in 1628, as being "embossed above, and painted with red, white, blue, and gold." The same traveler remarked about "the ground, or floor, spread with carpets of silk and gold, without other furniture." Sir John Chardin, who lived in Persia a little later, wrote of the windows, "they are all Sashes, whereof the Squares are made of a thickish waved (ilass and hinder People looking in, and are of all Colours irregularly . . . some- Red, some Green, some Yellow, and so on." He also mentioned the foun tains to be found "in all Houses, and even in the meanest," and described a feast for the Shah in which "The whole Hall was COVer'd with large Basons of Sweet-meats, and round the Basons were scented Waters, Bottles of F'ssenccs, Liquors, Wine And Brandv of several Sorts."
HALL TILES SHOWING FIGURES IN EUROPEAN COSTUME IN A GARDEN
Persian, XVII century, from the Chehil Sutun, or Palace of the Forty Columns, built by Shah Abbas at Isfahan. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
For many centuries Persia has been famed for the beautiful designs and rich colors of her tiles, which have been widely used in wall decorations and coverings for domes. The Anglo-F'rench traveler Sir John Chardin, who lived in Persia between 1666 and 1677, wrote of the use of tiles: "I shall observe three things more, con cerning the Persian Buildings: The First is, that they Line the Walls with Earthen 'Files, as the Dutch do their Chimneys." In the panel seen here blue, both dark and turquoise, green, yellow, and purple-brown are the chief colors. The men in European costume are probably Persians, for Western clothes were in fashion in Persia about this time. Wall paintings in the Palace of the Forty Columns also show many such figures. In England the fashion was re, Sir Robert Sherley, the Englishman who had much to do with reorganizing the Persian army, and who came to the court of James I as ambassador from Shah Abbas, delighted to wear Persian costumes of rich silk, with a high, jeweled turban, and had his portrait painted in this garb by Van Dyck in 1622. Turbans were popular well through the eighteenth century, and appear in many English portraits.
29- SHAH JAHAN UPON THE PEACOCK THRONE
Indian miniature painting, period of Shah Jahan, 1627-1658. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Shah Jahan was the last of the Muhammadan Mughal, or Mongol, emperors of India to pursue the wise policy of trving to conciliate the Hindu subjects. His successors allowed the bitterness betw Muhammadans and Hindus to grow until it led to the downfall of the Mughal empire and opened the way for European control in India. Shah Jahan is generally known to the West as the builder of the Taj Mahal, the tomb of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. His fabulous Peacock Throne at Delhi is suggested rather than exactly pictured in this painting. Tavernier, a French merchant who traveled in India in Shah |.ihan's reign and that of his successor, wrote of this throne: "The under-part of the Canopy is all em- broider'd with Pearls .xnd Diamonds, with a Fringe of Pearls round about. Upon the top of the Canopy, which is made with an i. with four Panels, Stan ll 1 Peacock, with his Tail spread, celli ng all of S.iphirs, and other proper colour'! Stones, the Bo • beaten Gold, enchas'd with several Jewels, and .1 great Ruby upon his breast, at which hangs a Pearl. . . . This is the famous throne which Tamerlane began and Cha-jchan finish'd." Two peacocks are shown in this painting, one at each rnd of the canopy, but they are not easily seen against the elaborate background.
30. THE TAJ MAHAL AT At.RA
(Photograph by Lindsley E. Hall)
Shah Jahan, Emperor of India from 1627 to 1658, built this tomb to immortalize the memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. determined that it should outshine all other buildings in the world, and to this end called together architects from Eastern lands and a few from Fiuropc. The chief architect was (Jstad 'Isa, prob ably a Turk or .1 Persian from Shiraz. A Venetian, Gcronimo Vcro- neo, is also believed to have worked upon it, and Hindu builders -.ell. The tomb is of pure white marble, and is decorated with openwork carvings and inl • miprecioui stones. Mumtaz Mahal died in 162 I, but so careful .md exquisite was the workman ship of her tomb that it was not finished until after 1650. Both she and Shah Jahan are buried in the crept beneath the floor. The ich doctor Bernler, who lived at the court of Shah Jahan's siic- >r, wrote "that the extraordinary fabric could not be sufficiently admired," though he confessed that he might have thought long residence in India had biased his judgment had not his opinion been shared by his fellow countryman T.ncrnicr, who had traveled much in India between 1641 and 1067. Tavernier wrote: "Of all the monuments that are to be seen at Agra, that of the wife of Cha- jchan is the most magnificent," then added rather condescending!) that its dome was "little less magnificent than thai of the Val de
JI. PARI' OF A PRINTED COTTON HANGING
: in, about 1615-1640. (The Metropolitan Museum of .Art)
This group of Indian women is from a large hanging which sh an Indian noble with his wife and child, surrounded by little figures inl tame who amuse the mong the flowei the women may be seen household jars, bottles, ewers, and cups of pottery or gl. ;ind arms of t! ladies, and their f: 11 their homes, are of delicately patterned stuffs. Such cottons as this were described by the Englishman John Evelyn in his Diary when he wrote 011 August 30, 1665, of "my Lad} Mordaunt'i .a Aahted, whew a roome hung with /' he Portuguese name for Indian painted cottons) full of figures I small, prettily rep -;ng sundt lie Indians, with their hah i rnier, a Frenchman 1 n India about this same- time, often referred to these "chites" [chintzes] or "painted Cali- which "serve for Coverlet Sofia's" und for pillow covers. Throughout the East, Indian cottons were widely i in Euroi nth century, tl became so popular that laws were passed limiting or forbidding their imp, I tes were enacted lest the low pi of imported cottons ruin European manufactures, but they w often evaded.
3-- MERCHANT* FROM CHINA WHO IR U>,. AT •A*!AM
filsTf?"1 P«« '"• PublicTbra^v) ' FnaktWi '""• '«* When the Europeans can, , ,|R. Mu)um, city and mo« powerful i„ |JVJ. Tll,. , ^ (] nerc long before this time, and the Portuguese- opened trade with e City ln ,S20. The Dutch made Bantam theil -oA Ji P°rtu«u"c '" 'he East, and opened trade the >90. When the Dutch East India Company was founded in . <»m became its first trade center in the pany, headquarters w, Betavia in . remained important for many vears. The I ' had a trading station there t "Th I Dutch .° ?° Kait ,ndlcs '•> "5 under tl, e Moutman. The author 1 opofl the the 'esc merchants who went from town to town baying up pepper, :">g«ure that they were not ci •»eigh it on the spot Albert de Mandeklo, who 1 itaia "" "639, noticed the I miurl. ,he t-nincse are thev that bring the greatest trade thither, the meet in dustrious to get wealth, and live " Although tl; quarters of the Dutch I i,,,,^., jn Hantam. •Mandeklo wrote: "Without question this ... is ,!„• ,,, most considerable citv of all Java " 3J. A CHI.VESE SHIP Plate XX\ I from De Bry's Voyages, East Indies Series, Part III, first German edition, F'rankfort on the Main, 1599. (New York Public Library) The Chinese were the great carriers of local trade in F"ar Eastern The Dutch traveler Linschoten wrote of their ships: "The countrie is so full of Scutes and Boates to style in ryvcrs, that it is Jerfull, for th 1 affirm, that in the Haven and ryver I anton there are always more ships and bars ire in the • untrie of v The Spanish depended almost entirely upon Chinese vessels to bring Eastern | ' inila, from wh the. n Spanish bottoms to Mexico. The text companying this pictur. n to the star-shaped wooden anchors and rattan sails, and notes that there sometimes seem to be more ships than water in the The picture itself was copied in reverse from one in the first Dutch edition of Linschoten's tied in 1596. This was illustrated after the author's own drawings. 34- CHINESE SILK VELVET WITH DRAGON AND CLOUD DESIGN Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) China was the home of silk, the land from which the knowledge of silkworms and their culture spread to the rest of the world. The Romans used the word serica to apply to both the silken stuff, which they greatly prized, and the land from which it came. F'roin China the raising of silkworms spread to India and Persia and other -ern lands, and from Persia it was carried into eastern Europe during the sixth century A.D. The silks of India, Persia, and Europe, however, did not lessen the demand for the silk of China. The Dutch traveler Linschoten wrote of the Chinese silk manufac ture and trade in the late sixteenth centurv: "It is affirmed for a truth, that only from the town of Canton there is yearclv carried into India above three thousand Quintals of Silke, which are sold by waight, besides the Silkes that are vcarcly carried to the Hands of Japan Philippines, and the land of Sian [Siam], and other countries bordering about the same, and vet there stavcth so much within the countrie that therewith might be laden whole tlectes of shippes, and would not be missed." He mentioned, too, "that with the Sill lid is the Portingales t, the principallest riches that are brought vout of China to the Countries bordering about it." Antomo de Morga, secretary to the Governor of the Philippines from 159$ to i6c><;, also noted that the Chi, brought to Manila "quanti; plain .md some embroidered in all sorts of figures, cole >ions." 35- A CHINESE PORCELAIN CLP WITH EUROPEAN MOUNTS (The V krt) in China Juting the period of ' ~ 3-1619), • [ill mounl • re fused at a high temperature img that ace. ng it. In 1 709, the • in - ura- • rte may n I I] is nto it." I ware was soon ca1 ;a" after the land from which it came. 36. PART in A CARVED CHINESE LACQl KR SCREEN Dated 1690. ('I'he Metropolitan Museum of Art) True Oriental lacquer is the sap from a kind of sumach tree native to China and Japan. Both countries have produced several sorts of lacquer work, but in general China has led in carved lacquer ware and Japan in that decorated with bold 1 gold or silver laid like layers of paint on a black or colored ground. Oriental lacquer, dally of the carved variety pictured here, was often called by ipeans "Commanded" or "Bantam" work. This was shipped in Chinese vessels either to ports on the east, or "Coromandel," coast of India, where the French had a trading station at Pondicherv, or to Bantam in Java, the eastern headquarters of the Dutch East India Company. Thus the name given to lacquer was often that of the place where the European merchants obtained it rather than the place where it was made. "Japan-work" was another name for lacquer, and "japanning," the term for the European process of imitating Hat lacquer in varnish, ln his Traatist on Japanning and iblished in 16HS, John Stalker wrote: "We have laid before vou an Art very much admired bv us and all those who hold any commerce with the inhabit.ii n." After she expelled the Portuguese in 163H, the only Europeans with whom Japan traded directly were members of the Dutch East India Company. fapanesc work, however, was carried bl Chinese merchants to Mac 1 ports in India, tin 1 to la, where European it. m-.' .-?,*.' *• * * t^rt: ? * * SI GGESTED READING Beazley. C. R. Prime Henry the Navigator. New York, 191 I. and of geography in the Middle Ages. Chew, S. C. The I lam and England Jus the Renaissame. Em pi istem influences on English literature. jgh. S. K., and Cole, C. W. Economu i • Euro fa. Part II, 1300-1776. Boston, 194I. Includes study of Europe's eastward H Lo. Letters I and edited York and London, 1 Di 'he True f the Conquest of Mr Nov York, 1 93X. Vivid I /'//,- First English Advanturari to the -James 1 • '35- Foster, Sir V London and 898. By an unknown y from the Earliest Times to the ': :, 1926. K. Ihe / I ^Hi.). S, • j non-En in manv modern ind :•.'- latter nol 1 ,-t:ceen Spain and the Indies in th- ' tha II>r I, 1 Ja% 33 London, 1910. Includes valuable background material before the time of da Gama. Latourctte, K. S. The Development of Japan. New York, 1926. Linschoten, J. H. van. The Voyage of John Huyghen van Lin- tch ./ Indies. From the English translation of 1598 London, 1 Metropolitan Museum of Art, The. The Age of Exploration: a Chronological Chart. New York, 1942. Morse, H. B. The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, m York, 1910. American History: Burrage, H. S. (ed.). Early English and French VoyagOS . . . 1534- 160% New York, 1930. Cartier, Hawkins, Drake, Gilbert, colonies ieigh, colonies in Maine. Grant, W. L. (ed of Samuel de Champiain, 1004-1618. New ,,)- Vatharland, 1609-1664. New York, 1909. Henry Hudson, Peter Stuyvesant, and others. and Bourne. 1'. G. I rtkman, Columbus rmia, 1606-1625. New \ork, 1930. Captain John Smith, John Roll hers. Maf: the Story of Exploration. New York, P. ration from ancient times to the present, with 0111} ndividual graphy, ', I'll! R.iwlmson, H. CJ. India: a Short Cultural History. London, 1937. Schmidt, R. I f Fashion. I'rans- i and edited with I I tion bj W. A, Thorpe. London I |, See chapter . on porcelain of China and J,apan and its importation to Europe. Schurz, W. L. Tka Manila Galleon. New York, 1939- Tl tween Manila and the 1 Manila and Acapulco. Many con- porary referent London, 191 3. \ sillant, G. C Garden City, New York, 1941. \'.m Loon, H. W. The GoUan Bonk of the Dutch Navigators. New- York [ 1938]. Written for young people, and gives accounts of Dutch voyages otherwise- difficult to obtain. Printed in an edition of 3,000 copies, September, 1942 AH.