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care or sympathy for others, which later led him into the commission of crimes more cruel than those of Cortez or Pizarro, we see also in him the embodiment, as it were, of the strenuous spirit of Portugal at the beginning of the sixteenth century—the spirit which made possible the miracles of conquest which then were wrought in Asia, the spirit which awoke that bitter, impotent hatred of the white men which still lingers in the East in the traditions of a people little apt to forgive or to forget.

After Vasco da Gama had opened up the new highway of trade to the East which, diverting the wealth of Asia from its old markets on the shores of the Adriatic, ruined many an Italian city while it brought a hitherto undreamed of prosperity to the towns of Portugal, it became the custom for a large and well-equipped fleet to sail from Lisbon in the spring of each year. These fleets bore with them reinforcements for the white adventurers in Asia wherewith to carry on the ruthless war which then was raging between the newcomers and the ancient kingdoms of the East. They bore too large numbers of men fired by a desire to win for themselves a share of the plunder concerning which such dazzling accounts had reached Europe—men who, like Alexander, lusted after new worlds to conquer, and regarded the recently discovered lands as mere stepping-stones to wealth. It was in a spirit of frank brigandage that the Portuguese, from the highest to the lowest, swarmed into Asia. They were utterly without any sense of responsibility in so far as the lands and the men who were their appointed vic-