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We then set sail, and had a good voyage till we passed the Straits of Madagascar; but having got northward of that island, and to about five degrees south latitude, the winds, which in those seas are observed to blow a constant equal gale between the north and west, from the beginning of December to the beginning of May, on the 19th of April began to blow with much greater violence, and more westerly than usual, continuing so for twenty days together; during which time we were driven a little to the east of the Molucca Islands, and about three degrees northward of the line, as our captain found by an observation he took the 2d of May, at which time the wind ceased, and it was a perfect calm; whereat I was not a little rejoiced.
They displayed a painting of a mighty carak, having six masts, with sails and shrouds, and having armed horsemen on board . In May 1523, Antonio de Britto, the Portuguese governor of the Molucca isles, sent Simon de Bru to discover the passage from thence by the island of Borneo to Malacca.
The Venetians, who foresaw the ruin of their oriental commerce in the success of the Portuguese, in vain endeavoured to stop the progress of their rivals in the middle of the sixteenth century: the latter, masters of the east coast of Africa, of the coasts of Arabia and Persia, of the two peninsulas of India, of the Molucca islands, and of the trade to China and Japan, supplied every part of Europe with the productions of the east, by the Cape of Good Hope; nor was their power and commerce subverted, till Portugal became a province of Spain.
The voyager, setting forth from the straits of Gibraltar, circumnavigating the African headlands and Cape Comorin, and sailing through the Molucca channel and past the isles which bore the name of Philip in the Eastern sea, gave the hand at last to his adventurous comrade, who, starting from the same point, and following westward in the track of Magellaens and under the Southern Cross, coasted the shore of Patagonia, and threaded his path through unmapped and unnumbered clusters of islands in the Western Pacific; and during this spanning of the earth's whole circumference not an inch of land or water was traversed that was not the domain of Philip.
At noon on the fifth day after this exceedingly awkward adventure, our latitude, as computed from the meridian altitude of the sun, showed that we had fairly cleared the Molucca Passage and had reached the waters, wherein our search for the ideal island pictured by Wilde's vivid imagination was to begin.
The Dutch have a settlement here, and have long been on good terms with the ruling powers. It is the most important of the Molucca group, as it produces a vast quantity of cloves, beside every variety of tropical fruits. It was taken by us in 1810, and restored in 1815.
The following remark of Horsburgh's, in describing the monsoons, is extremely valuable, and assists to explain Hadley's theory of these matters: "The parts where the north-west and the south-east monsoons prevail with greatest strength and regularity are in the Java sea, and from thence eastward to Timor, amongst the Molucca and Banda islands, and onward to New Guinea;" for it will be obvious to any one who inspects the globe, on reading this passage, that there occurs in the neighbourhood of the spots alluded to a powerful cause for the strength and regularity of the monsoons.
It is only in confinement that her finer qualities come out, and that she develops into a speech-maker of distinguished attainments. A very peculiar and exceptional offshoot of the parrot group is the brush-tongued lory, several species of which are common in Australia, India, and the Molucca Islands.
Captain Nek made treaties of amity and commerce with the potentates of Ternate, Tydor, and other Molucca islands. The King of Candy on the Island of Ceylon, lord of the odoriferous fields of cassia which perfume those tropical seas, was glad to learn how to exchange the spices of the equator for the thousand fabrics and products of western civilization which found their great emporium in Holland.
During its prevalence the fish disappear. This white water is supposed to come from the shores of New Guinea and the Gulf of Carpentaria." MR. STANLEY. "You are slightly wrong, George, in stating this curious sea to be near Gililo. Gililo is on, the equator, and the Molucca Sea is at least 5° below the equator, and directly south of Ceram."
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