But the greatest of the Portuguese viceroys was Affonso de Albuquerque, who captured the important post of Goa, on the mainland of India, which still belongs to Portugal, and the port of Ormuz, which, we have seen, was one of the centres of the Eastern trade.  Even more important was the capture of the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, which were discovered in 1511, after the Portuguese had seized Malacca.  By 1521 the Portuguese had full possession of the Spice Islands, and thus held the trade of condiments entirely in their own hands.  The result was seen soon in the rise of prices in the European markets.  Whereas at the end of the fifteenth century pepper, for instance, was about 17s. a pound, from 1521 and onwards its average price grew to be 25s., and so with almost all the ingredients by which food could be made more tasty.  One of the circumstances, however, which threw the monopoly into the hands of the Portuguese was the seizure of Egypt in 1521 by the Turks under Selim I., which would naturally derange the course of trade from its old route through Alexandria.  From the Moluccas easy access was found to China, and ultimately to Japan, so that the Portuguese for a time held in their hands the whole of the Eastern trade, on which Europe depended for most of its luxuries.

As we shall see, the Portuguese only won by a neck—­if we may use a sporting expression—­in the race for the possession of the Spice Islands.  In the very year they obtained possession of them, Magellan, on his way round the world, had reached the Philippines, within a few hundred miles of them, and his ship, the Victoria, actually sailed through them that year.  In fact, 1521 is a critical year in the discovery of the world, for both the Spanish and Portuguese (the two nations who had attempted to reach the Indies eastward and westward) arrived at the goal of their desires, the Spice Islands, in that same year, while the closure of Egypt to commerce occurred opportunely to divert the trade into the hands of the Portuguese.  Finally, the year 1521 was signalised by the death of King Emmanuel of Portugal, under whose auspices the work of Prince Henry the Navigator was completed.

It must here be observed that we are again anticipating matters.  As soon as the discovery of the New World was announced, the Pope was appealed to, to determine the relative shares of Spain and Portugal in the discoveries which would clearly follow upon Columbus’s voyage.  By his Bull, dated 4th May 1493, Alexander VI. granted all discoveries to the west to Spain, leaving it to be understood that all to the east belonged to Portugal.  The line of demarcation was an imaginary one drawn from pole to pole, and passing one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, which were supposed, in the inaccurate geography of the time, to be in the same meridian.  In the following year the Portuguese monarch applied for a revision of the raya, as this would keep him out of all discovered in the