[Photographic facsimile of original manuscript map in the British Museum]
NOTES
[488] This passage of Pigafetta, had the Portuguese been aware of it, would have effectually answered the Spaniards in their assertions of priority of discovery in the Moluccas, in the celebrated Junta of Badajoz (see VOL. I, pp. 165–221).
[489] Tristão de Meneses was sent by Aleixo de Menezes to Malacca, and while on his way thither sailed among the islands of Java, Banda, and the Moluccas. He is mentioned by Brito (Navarrete, iv, p. 306) as being at Ternate.
[490] Diogo Lopes de Siqueira, a Portuguese naval officer, and captain-general and governor of India (1518–22), was despatched from Lisbon, April 5, 1508, with four ships on an expedition for the discovery and exploration of Malacca. On his arrival at India he was offered the position of chief-captain of India but declined. In December, 1509, he left for Malacca, where his carelessness and sense of security almost lost him his life because of Malay treachery. See Birch’s Alboquerque, Guillemard’s Magellan, and Mosto, p. 96, note 1.
[491] Juda is the town of Jidda or Djeddah, the port of Mecca. The feud between the Turks and Arabs and the Portuguese was of some years’ standing, for with the advent of the latter into the eastern world, the former had suffered greatly in their commerce, which had been extensive. Alboquerque fought against them at Aden (for descriptions and history of which, see Varthema’s Travels, Hakluyt Society edition, pp. 59–64; Birch’s Alboquerque, iv, pp. 10–14; and Lucas’s Hist. geog. Brit. Col., i. pp. 53–62), and at Goa. Many men were sent (1515) from Egypt to aid the Arabs at Aden, and the Portuguese were in constant fear of attack.
[492] MS. 5,650 reads: “Francisque Sarie.” This is probably Pero de Faria who was given command of a ship at Malacca by Alboquerque (Birch’s Alboquerque, iii, p. 166), and who was sent by the governor (Diogo Lopes de Siqueira) to build a fort at Maluco (Mosto, p. 96, note 4).
[493] The Banda, or Nutmeg Islands, which belong to the Dutch, are small and ten in number, some of which are uninhabited. Banda (properly Bândan) means in Javanese “the thing or things tied or united,” or with the word “Pulo,” “united islands.” The group lies between south latitudes 3° 50′ and 4° 40′. Sontar or the Great Banda is the largest island, but the principal settlement is on Nera. They are volcanic in origin and frequent eruptions and earthquakes have occurred. The population is scant, and the raising of nutmegs constitutes almost the entire source of revenue. Abreu was the first Portuguese to visit them (in 1511, at the order of Alboquerque), but Varthema (Travels, Hakluyt Society edition, pp. 243, 244) seems to have visited them before that time. The Portuguese held the islands peacefully until 1609, when the Dutch attempted to settle, but were resisted by the natives, and many of the Dutch massacred, from which followed a war of extermination until 1627. Most of the natives fled, so that it became necessary for the Dutch to introduce slave labor for the cultivation of the nutmegs. At the Dutch conquest the nutmeg plantations were given to the persons taking part in it, and are still held by their heirs, under the name of Parkeniers, on condition of delivering the whole product to the government at a fixed and low rate. See Crawfurd’s Dictionary, pp. 33–36.