Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: April 30, 2025
The patriarch having met with many obstacles and disappointments in his return to Abyssinia, grew impatient of being so long absent from his church. Lopo Gomez d'Abreu had made him an offer at Bazaim of fitting out three ships at his own expense, provided a commission could be procured him to cruise in the Red Sea.
For this purpose he gave to Antonio and Francisco d'Abreu the command of a small squadron carrying 220 men, with which they explored the whole of the Sunda Archipelago, Sumatra, Java, Anjoam, Simbala, Jolor, Galam, &c.; then being not far from the coast of Australia they sailed back again to the north and arrived at the Islands of Buro and Amboyna, which form part of the Molucca group.
In 1509 their ships first reached Malacca; two years later that "golden Chersonese" was taken by Albuquerque; and in 1512 D'Abreu returned with the first cargo of cloves from Amboina and Banda, the very "isles where the spices grow."
Of course in 1572 João de Castilho had been long dead, but the inscription was put up in 1848, and it is quite likely that by then L. L. d'Abreu and his friends had forgotten or did not know that even as late as the sixteenth century dates were sometimes still reckoned by the era of Cæsar, so finding it recorded that the chapel had been built in the year 1572 they took for granted that it was A.D. 1572, whereas it may just as well have been E.C. 1572, that is A.D. 1534, just the very time when João de Castilho was building the dormitory in the convent and using there the same curious panelling.
The first European sailor who sighted the island was D'Abreu, in 1511; the honour of being first to land belongs most probably to the Portuguese explorer, Don Jorge De Meneses, in 1526, on his way from Malacca to the Moluccas. Into the somewhat intricate history of the connection of the Dutch with the north-west coast of New Guinea we cannot here enter.
Now under the west window of the north aisle there is a small tablet with the following inscription in Portuguese : 'This chapel was erected in A.D. 1572, but profaned in 1810 was restored in 1848 by L. L. d'Abreu, etc.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking