Page 43 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

HOW LANCASTER INITIATED EASTERN TRADE 43

while the changed character of the heavens—the fading
out of the old constellations and the appearance of new
ones—seemed to give a further and sinister significance to
portents already big with the decrees of Fate.
We catch something of the relief with which this dreaded
region was left behind in the increased liveliness of the
narrative of Lancaster’s voyage as the vessels approach
the Indian Ocean. But death still dogged the course of the
fleet. At Madagascar there expired on the Red Dragon “ the
master’s mate, the preacher and the surgeon with some ten
other common men,” and as the captain of the Ascension
was going ashore in his boat to the funeral of the departed
he and his boatswain’s mate, who accompanied him, were
slain by a shot from one of the guns fired as a ceremonial
salute in accordance with the custom followed on such
occasions. “ So they that went to sec the buriaLwcre both
buried there themselves.” The narrator adds that those
who succumbed at Madagascar “ mostly died of the flux,
which in our opinion came with the waters we drank ”—a
highly probable circumstance.
Quitting Madagascar, Lancaster steered directly for the
Straits of Malacca. Assisted by the favouring south-west
monsoon he made a good passage to Acheen, off which
port his fleet dropped anchor on June 5. In selecting this
spot he no doubt followed the advice of Davis, whose ex­
perience with Iloutman’s fleet taught him that this was
one of the most important centres of the spice trade, which
was then, to a large extent, the staple Eastern commodity.
The capture of a share of this trade was the primary object
of the expedition. An immediate effect of the Dutch
intrusion into the East had been to raise the price of Indian
pepper in the English market from 3s. to 8s. per pound,