Part 2 (2/2)

They sailed over those twelve leagues of clear resplendent waters and came to Calicat, or Malabar. That day of discovery was Portugal's glory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTUGUESE INDIES]

Calicat was a merchant city of the East, and one of the most famous of India. Here came Arabian and Egyptian merchants. It was a Mohammedan city, and the princes of Calicat encouraged trade between the Arabs and Hindoos. The city was now to become an emporium for the Western World.

After many adventures in Malabar, Vasco da Gama cruised along the coast of India. Everything was wonderful, and the wonders grew.

In September, 1499, he returned, and was received like a sovereign by the Portuguese King. His arrival was a holiday, the glory of which has lived in all Portuguese holidays until now.

He was given t.i.tles of distinction. He was made a Viceroy of India.

Twenty years after these events Magellan was destined to discover _another_ way to India.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ENTHUSIASTS CARRY THEIR PLANS TO THE KING.

Magellan, full of his project of finding a short way to the rich spicery by sailing West, now sought the favor of the Spanish court. Gold has ever been the royal want, and n.o.bles have always had open ears to schemes that promised to fill the public treasury.

Magellan's interesting friend Francisco Serrao, who had remained in the Indian possessions of the Portuguese, after Magellan's return, had discovered resources of the tropical seas of the Orient that were almost boundless. He had written to Magellan:

”If you would become rich return to the Moluccas.”

This letter would be a sufficient pa.s.sport to the n.o.bles who had the ear of the King. He showed the letter to the King's ministers.

He thought that the point of South America turned _westward_, as the Cape of Good Hope toward the East. He had an imaginary map in his mind of an ocean world whose shape had no real existence, but that answered well as a theory.

Magellan had brought a globe from Portugal on which he had drawn the undiscovered world as he thought it existed. The strait which he had hoped to find was omitted on this globe in his drawings that no navigator might antic.i.p.ate his discovery.

Some of the ministers listened to the project with indifference, a few with ridicule; but as a rule Magellan appealed to willing ears. The ministers as a body agreed to commend the enterprise to the King. The Haros of Antwerp, the Rothschilds of the time, favored the expedition.

So Magellan and Faleiro made out a pet.i.tion of formal proposals which they desired to present to the King, and awaited the opportunity.

That opportunity soon came. Charles V, son of Joanna, who was pa.s.sing her days in solitude and grief on account of the loss of her husband, was on his way to Aragon. He was Emperor of Germany and King of Spain.

He was a youth now; having been born in Ghent, February 24, 1500. He came to the throne of Spain in 1516, as the disordered intellect of his mother made her incapable of reigning. He was elected German Emperor in 1519.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles V. After a painting by t.i.tian.]

In his youth he had been dissolute. Seeing the responsibilities that he owed to the world and the age, he suddenly received new moral impulses and conquered himself, and his moral life was followed by a religious disposition. He received from the Pope the t.i.tle of Roman Emperor. His powerful intellect subdued a great part of continental Europe to his will; but he became weary of the cares of state, retired from the world, and ended his life as a religious recluse.

The young King entered Spain in triumph, but amid the glare of receptions his ears were not dull to projects for acquiring gold.

Magellan and Faleiro, under the commendation of the ministry, were soon able to lay their project before the young grandson of the great Isabella. He received them in the spirit that Isabella had met Columbus.

He approved their plans, and charged them to make preparations for the expedition.

<script>