The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1923-10-03
PORTUGAL IN THE INDIES
A. D. 1912

II was italian trade that bought and
paid for the designs of Raphael. the
temples of Mlchelangelo, the sculp-
lures of Cellini, the inventions of Da
Vinci, for all the wonders, the glories,
he splendors of inspired Italy. And II
was not good for the Italian trade that
Barbarossa, and the corsairs of three
centuries in his wake, beggared the
merchants and enslaved their seamen
But Italian commerce had its source In
the Indian seas. and the ruin Of Italy
began when the sea adventures of
Portugal rounded the Cape of Good
Hope to rob, to trade, to govern at the
old centers of Arabian business.
Poverty Is the mother of labor, labor
the parent OF wealth and genius. 1t
was the poverty of Attica, and the Ro-
man swamps, of sterile Scotland, bog
gy Ireland, swampy Holland, stony
New England, which drove them to
high endeavor and great reward. Por-
tugal, too, had that advantage of being
small and poor, without resources. or
any motive to keep the folk at home.
So the fishermen took to trading and
exploration, led by Gao, who found the
Cape of Good Hope; Vasco da Cana.
who smelt out the way to India AL
media, who gained command of the IT.
dian seas; Cabral. who discovered Bra
I'll Albuquerque, who, selling Goa and
Malacca, established a Christian en-
Miro In TIM Indtac md No rallon who
showed Spain the way to the Pacific.
OF these the typical a was Da
Cana, a noble with the motives of a
crusader and the habits of a pirate
who nee set fire to a shipload Of Arab
pilgrims, and watched unmoved while
the women on her blazing deck held
out little babies In the vain hope of
mercy. On his first voyage he came to
Calicut, a center of Hindu civilization.
a seat of Arab commerce, and to the
rajah sent a present of washing basins,
casks of oil, a few strings of coral, fit
illustration of the poverty of his brave
country, accepted as a joke in polished.
wealthy, weary India. The king gave
him leave to trade, but seized the trade
goods until the Portuguese ships had
been ransacked for two hundred TWEEN
ty-three pounds in gold to pay the Gus
toms duties. The point of the Joke
was only realized when on his second
voyage Da Cana came with a fleet.
bombarded Calicut and loaded his
ships with spices, leaving a trail of
blood and ashes along the Indian coast.
Twenty years later he came a third
time, but now as viceroy to the Portu-
guese Indies. Portugal was no longer
poor. but the richest state in Europe,
bleeding herself to death to find the
men for her ventures.
Now these arrogant and feroclous
officials, military robbers, fishermen
turned corsairs, and ravenous traders,
taught the whole East to hate and fear
the Christian. Then came a tiny little
monk no nor than five feet high, a
white-haired, biue-eyed mendicant, who
begged the rice he lived on. Yet SO
sweet was his temper, so magical the
charm, so supernatural the valor of
this barefoot monk that the children
worshiped him, the lepers came TO him
to be healed. and the pirates were
proud to have him as their guest. He
was a gentleman. a Spanish Basque,
by name Francis de Xavier, and In the
University of Paris had been a fellow
student of Ignatius de Loyola, helping
him to found the Society of Jesus.
Xavier came to the Indies in 1912 as
a Jesuit priest.
Frun his own letters one sees how
the heather puzzled this little saint ]:
"'Was God blacs Or whittier For, as
there is so. great variety Of color among
man, and the Indians are themselves
most highly. and hold that their gods
IRE also black"
Re does not say how he answered, In
deed 1t was hardly by words that this
hidalgo of Spain preached in the many
languages he could neve learn. Once
when his converts were threatened by
q hostile army he vent alone to chal-
lenge the invaders, and with uplifted
crucifix rebuked them In the name OF
God. The front ranks wavered and
halted. Their comrades and leaders
vainly pressed them to advance, but no
man dared pass the bl~ack-robed figure
which barred the way, and presently
the whole force retreated.
Such was the apostle of the Indies,
and 1t is a pleasant thing to trace the
story of his mission in Japan In the
"Peregrination," a book by a thorough
rogue.
Fernao Mendes Pinto was a distant
relative of Ananias. He sailed for In
dia in 1887, "meanly accommodated"
At Dfu he Joined an expedition to
watch the Turkish fleet In the Red sea,
and from Massawa was sent with let
tiers to the king of Abyssinia. That was
great luck, because the very black and
more or less Christian kingdom was
supposed to be the seal of the legend
airy, immortal, shadowy Prester John.
On his way back to Massawa, the ad-
was wrecked, captured by
Arabs, sold into slavery, bought by a
Jew and resold in the commercial city
of Ormus, where there were Christian
BUYERS. He found his way to Goa, the
capital of the Portuguese Indies.
thence TO Malacca, where he got a Job