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cordingly their explorations were practically confined to the islands and ports and the coast regions of the East.

The Moluccas or Spice Islands, the home of the clove and the nutmeg, had from the first been the principal goal which the Portuguese adventurers were bent upon reaching, and Dalboquerque, as we have seen, lost no time in despatching an expedition to explore this archi- pelago as soon as Malacca had fallen. Antonio Dabreu, who was in command, was not the first European, how- ever, to visit the group. Prior to the date of Dalbo- querque's victory in the Malay Peninsula, the Moluccas had been visited by the Italian wanderer, Ludovico di Varthema, and by Barbosa, the former being, so far as our information goes, the first white man to land upon their shores. Dabreu returned to Malacca in 1514 with all his party, except the crew of one vessel who, with their captain, Francisco Surão, had lost their ship at Ter- nate and had remained behind on that island. Pigafetta, the chronicler of Magellan's voyage, who was at Tidor during the latter months of 1521, mentions that this man, whom he calls Francisco Serrano, had become the "cap- tain-general of the King of Tarenate when he was mak- ing war upon the King of Tidore," and by his prowess had so earned the hatred of the latter that means had been contrived to poison him. Pedro Alfonso de Loroso, another Portuguese who was living at Ternate at the time of Pigafetta's visit, came to see the Spaniards and told them,

"That he had come to India sixteen years ago, and of these years he had passed ten in Moluco; and it was just