Linguists tell us “Asia” is from the Akkadian “asu” (where the sun rises). The “Indios” were the people who lived in India, the land – traditionally given feminine names – beyond the Indus river, but which Columbus erroneously mistook and applied the name to the Cubans he had seen during his first voyage to the New World.
Because of their wealth, Asians and Indios were objects of curiosity and envy. And Westerners wanted to contact them. Still, Pliny, the Roman naturalist, ridiculed his contemporaries for their “ridiculous tastes.” Sweets attract, he wrote, but pungent spices?
One of the tales that pricked European curiosity was that paradise was in the East. Following the bible, people believed that the sons of Japeth would, on the last day, ravage the earth. One better prepare for it! The tropical zone was too hot for life, just as the north and south poles would freeze one into ice.
THE LEGENDARY BEASTS
Before the Atlantic was successfully crossed, China tried to keep secret its method of producing silk. But despite the risks of the land routes, those who dared it, succeeded in bringing the silk worm through India to Egypt, Syria, then to Sicily, Spain, Italy, and France. They also brought production techniques, like the turning reel and the spindle wheel, moved faster and easier by the waterwheel propelled by windmills. All these came from the East.
To guard their monopoly of the spice trade, the Arabs spread legends. Spice, they said, grew in shallow lakes teeming with winged beasts, or in deep glens where poisonous snakes slithered and glided all over.
But the Westerners wanted more. And when Islam monopolized the eastern land routes, the Westerners, led by Portugal and Spain, looked for an alternate route, the oceans in the west till then unknown. Out of sheer need, always the mother of inventions, they improved their sailing craft.
By Magellan’s time, the best boat was the caravel (“barco redondo”), sturdier and stronger than the thin galleys good only for the calmer Mediterranean ocean, to withstand the rougher weather of the Atlantic. Before the caravel, northern Europe had the kogge (from which we derive the English “cog”), a large single mast cargo boat, with a sturdy hull, a sail of about 40 by 75 meters, and a lateral rudder. The Portuguese developed the carrack, a cargo boat (or “India man”). From these two, the caravel developed, a longer, narrow, single deck boat with three masts, the mid-mast with a square sail measuring 280 square meters (called “round sail” because a favorable wind rounds it like a balloon), and masts aft and forward with lateen (triangular) sails. Generally measuring 7 by 15.5 by 21.5 meters, it had an open poop, a forecastle, its draught not deeper than 2.75 meters at mid-ship. The great improvement was the rudder fixed at the stern, which allowed greater maneuverability and more speed. These boats were moved only with the wind, hardly by oars. A good pilot used a combination of sails to change direction or speed.
FAMINE AND SICKNESS
In 1520, when Magellan first crossed the Pacific Ocean, he did not know what was in store for him and his men. But Pigafetta, his chronicler, wrote that when their food began to run out (for the loan sharks in Seville had cheated them by one half the greed rations), they ate, not biscuit, but “powder of biscuits swarming with worms which had eaten the good [biscuits]. It stank strongly of rat urine. We drank yellow water putrid for many days. We also ate some of the hides that covered the main yard protecting it from chafing the shrouds, and which had become exceedingly hard because of the sun, rain, and wind. We left them in the sea for four or five days, and then placed them on top of the embers, and ate them.”
About a hundred years later, a missionary to the Philippines described the hardships of sailing. Sea travel, he began, is not connatural to the human body. It is a constant jerking and tugging at the sails as urged on by the wind, the boat keels on, seasick passengers “lose” their head, their stomachs turn, taste and appetite are lost. Add this to the unhealthy situation of the narrow confines of the vessel, the foul smell especially below decks, bad meals, and always the nearness of death.
Today, of course, travel is neither as difficult, nor as time consuming. But, looking back, we cannot help but admire those unsung heroes, priests, sisters, and lay catechists, who left home and everything they had, and risked life and limb in order to bring the Gospel message to the people who otherwise would not have known Christ.
THE CHINESE PIONEER
Few know him today, but old Chinese records mention Zheng He (originally “Ma He”), a great navigator. His parents were Arabian migrants to China, and growing into a young man, he helped the Mings from the North conquer the southern Chinese empire. Because of his abilities, the Emperor took him into his imperial service.
Soon, Emperor Cheng Zu sent him on voyages to Southeast Asia, and the eastern coasts of Africa and Arabia. He reached the Ryukyu Islands near northern Japan, the Philippines, the Moloccas, Mozambique, and the South African coasts. Of course, he also sailed across the Indian Ocean, to the surprise of the merchants from Arabia and Venice plying the trade routes between Ormuz and Aden. He could have rounded the Cape of Good Hope from the opposite direction followed later by Vasco da Gama, but no clear indication assures us he did.
Some believe his exploits could have been exaggerated, but the records say he sailed to those places at least seven times. In 18 years, 1405-1423, Zheng He piloted seven expeditions of a total of 317 ships, manned by more than 27,000 sailors and soldiers, while bartering large quantities of goods. His admirers added that his voyages were a “feat” in the annals of navigation during a glorious period of Chinese international trade, unequalled since then. Perhaps more importantly, they provided new information that helped improve subsequent navigation.
BETTER TECHNOLOGY AND KNOWLEDGE
Experience taught them how to make a magnetized compass, water-tight compartments and vegetable plots on board ships for raising soybeans and other sources of Vitamin C during long voyages to avoid scurvy – Magellan’s crew incidentally did not know this and several of them died while crossing the Pacific. But Zheng He had sailed 87 years earlier than Columbus, 93 years before Vasco da Gama, and 116 years before Magellan reached the Philippines. When he returned from his last voyage, the Emperor whom he was serving had already died, and the voyages were discontinued. Chinese annals ceased mentioning him.
But Zheng He’s boats were the carriers of Chinese goods all over. These included brocades, gauzes, skeins or embroidered silk textiles. Porcelain included celadon and varied enamelware with Chinese characteristics. Zheng brought Arabian artisans to China who taught the Chinese artisans that borax in glass made it more resistant to heat and sudden changes in temperature. Glass utensils since then were no longer a rarity.
Significantly, from foreign countries, Zhenge He also brought to China building materials, fuels, and other exotic articles. “Kylin” (African giraffe) and “fulu” (zebra), most probably first brought in at this time, soon became decorative animals in the Imperial Garden.
Zheng He died in 1435 but, fortunately, his followers had written books, like Travel Notes of Foreign Countries, Chorography of Western Countries, etc. These opened the Chinese to western countries, their customs, economic systems, etc.
The story is told that the modern fork was a wedding gift for a princess from Constantinople betrothed to a Western noble man. Till then, the Westerners laid the food on dough spread on the table like a towel – something like today’s pizza. To flavor it, they readied meat juice. But they ate with bare fingers, which they wiped clean on their pet dogs’ hair or a dirty smelly towel. If true, this shows the refinement in the Chinese and Eastern empires long before Renaissance Europe heard of “courtly” refinement and manners.
