The first European ships reached Asian waters in the 1490s . Like the Chinese, European shippers were able to expand their routes into Asia by purchasing Arab navigation knowledge and skills. In 1498, Portuguese ships berthed in Calicut in India, and in 1505 they entered the sea highway to the Indonesian Islands.

Today these islands are forgotten and visited only by the adventurous traveler with some time in his hands.

In 1603, when the first English colony anywhere was founded on the Bandanese island of Run, ten pounds of nutmeg could be bought from its natives for a halfpenny a pound and resold in europe for a profit, at least by one estimate, of a staggering 32,000 percent.

Similarly, Ternate and Tidore and three smaller islands adjacent to the island of Halmahera in the Northern Moluccas, the exclusive home of the cloves trees, were equally prized destinations.

The first European gaze to the Far East settled on the fabled Spice islands of the Maluku (formerly The Moluccas).

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Last update
24-fév-06