The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators

by Hendrik Willem Van Loon

Spain in the sixteenth century was a magnificent example of the failure of imperial expansion minus a knowledge of elementary economics. Here we had a country which owned the better part of the world. It was rich beyond words and it derived its opulence from every quarter of the globe. For centuries a steady stream of bullion flowed into Spanish coffers. Alas! it flowed out of them just as rapidly; for Spain, with all its foreign glory, was miserably poor at home. Her people had never been taught to work. The soil did not provide food enough for the population of the large peninsula. Every biscuit, so to speak, every loaf of bread, had to be imported from abroad. Unfortunately, the grain business was in the hands of these same Dutch Calvinists whose nasal theology greatly offended his Majesty King Philip. Therefore during the first years of the rebellion the harbors of the Spanish kingdom had been closed against these unregenerate singers of Psalms. Whereupon Spain went hungry, and was threatened with starvation.

Economic necessity conquered religious prejudice. The ports of King Philip's domain once more were opened to the grain-ships of the Hollanders and remained open until the end of the war. The Dutch trader never bothered about the outward form of things provided he got his profits. He knew how to take a hint. Therefore, when he came to a Spanish port, he hoisted the Danish flag or sailed under the colors of Hamburg and Bremen. There still was the difficulty of the language, but the Spaniard was made to understand that this guttural combination of sounds represented diverse Scandinavian tongues. The tactful custom-officers of his Most Catholic Majesty let it go at that, and cheerfully welcomed these heretics without whom they could not have fed their own people.

When Jan Huygen left his own country he had no definite plans beyond a career of adventure; for then, as he wrote many years later, "When you come home, you have something to tell your children when you get old." In 1579 he left Enkhuizen, and in the winter of the next year he arrived in Spain. First of all he did some clerical work in the town of Seville, where he learned the Spanish language. Next he went to Lisbon, where he became familiar with Portuguese. He seems to have been a likable boy who did cheerfully whatever he found to do, but watched with a careful eye the chance to meet with his next adventure. After three years of a roving existence, with rare good luck, he met Vincente da Fonseca, a Dominican who had just been appointed Archbishop of Goa in the Indies. Jan Huygen obtained a position as general literary factotum to the new dignitary and also acted as purser for the captain of the ship.

At the age of twenty he was an integral member of a bona-fide expedition to the mysterious Indies. Through his account of this trip, printed in 1595, the Dutch traders at last learned to know the route to the Indies. The expedition left Lisbon on Good Friday of the year 1583 with forty ships. During the first few weeks nothing happened. Nothing ever happened during the first weeks on any of those expeditions. The trouble invariably began after the first rough weather. In this instance everything went well until the end of April, when the coast of Guinea had been reached. Then the fleet entered a region of squalls and severe rainstorms. The rain collected on the decks and ran down the hatchways. A dozen times or so a day the fleet had to come to a stop while all hands bailed out the water which filled the holds. When it did not rain the sun beat down mercilessly, and soon the atmosphere of the soaked wood became unpleasant. To make things worse the drinking water was no longer fresh, and smelled so badly that one could not drink it without closing the unfortunate nose that came near the cup.

On the whole the printed work of Jan Huygen does not show him as an admirer of the Portuguese or their system of navigation. In all his writing he gives us the impression of a very sober-minded young Hollander with a lot of common sense. Portugal had then been a colonial power for many years and showed unmistakable signs of deterioration. The people had been too prosperous. They were no longer willing to defend their own interests against other and younger nations. They still exercised their Indian monopoly because it had been theirs for so long a time that no one remembered anything to the contrary. But the end of things had come. Upon every page of Jan Huygen's book we find the same evidence of bad organization, little jealousies, spite, disobedience, cowardice, and lack of concerted action.

When only a few weeks from home this fleet of forty ships encountered a single small French vessel. Part of the Portuguese crew of the fleet was sick. The others made ready to flee at once. After a few hours it was seen that the Frenchman had no evil intentions, and continued his way without a closer inspection of his enemies. Then peace returned to the fleet of Fonseca.

A few days later the ship reached the equator. The customary initiation of the new sailors, followed by the usual festivities and a first-class drunken row, took place. The captain was run down and trampled upon by his men, tables and chairs were upset, and the crew fought one another with knives. This quarrel might have ended in a general murder but for the interference of the archbishop, who threw himself among the crazy sailors, and with a threat of excommunication drove them back to work. Half a dozen were locked up, others were whipped, and the ships continued their voyage in this happy-go-lucky fashion. Then it appeared that nobody knew exactly where they were. Observations finally showed that the fleet was still fifty miles west of the Cape of Good Hope. As a matter of fact, they had passed the cape several days before, but did not discover their error until a week later. Then they sailed northward until they reached Mozambique, where they spent two weeks in order to give the crew a rest and to repair the damages of the equatorial fight. On the twentieth of August they continued their voyage until the serpents which they saw in the water showed them that they were approaching the coast of India. From that time on luck was with the expedition. The ships reached the coast near the town of destination. After a remarkably short passage of only five months and thirteen days the fleet landed safely in Goa.

Jan Huygen was very proud of the record of his ship. Only thirty people had died on the voyage. It is true that all the people on board had been under a doctor's care, and every one of the sailors and passengers had been bled a few times; but thirty men buried during so long a voyage was a mere trifle. In the sixteenth century, if fifty per cent. of the men returned from an Indian voyage, the trip was considered successful.

The next five years Jan Huygen spent in Goa with his ecclesiastical master. He was intrusted with a great deal of confidential work, and became thoroughly familiar with all the affairs of the colony. In Goa he heard wonderful tales about the great Chinese Empire, many weeks to the north. He began to collect maps for an expedition to that distant land, but lack of funds made him put it off, and he never went far beyond the confines of the small Portuguese settlement.

Unfortunately, at the end of five years the archbishop died, and Jan Huygen was without a job. As he had had news that his father had died, he now decided to go back to Enkhuizen to see what he could do for his mother. Accordingly, in January of the year 1589, he sailed for home on board the good ship Santa Maria. It was the same old story of bad management: The ships of the return fleet were all loaded too heavily. The handling of the cargo was left entirely to ship-brokers, and these worthies had developed a noble system of graft. Merchandise was loaded according to a regular tariff of bribes. If you were willing to pay enough, your goods went neatly into the hold. If you did not give a certain percentage to the brokers, your bags and bales were stowed away somewhere on a corner of a wharf exposed to the rain and the sea. Very likely, too, the first storm would wash your valuable possessions overboard.