Relief came, not from the Peninsula, but from Mexico. Under the instructions of the Spanish king, in October, 1527, Cortes dispatched from Mexico a small expedition in charge of D. Alvaro de Saavedra. Swept rapidly by the equatorial trades, in a few months Saavedra had traversed the Carolines, reprovisioned on Mindanao, and reached the survivors on Tidor. Twice they attempted to return to New Spain, but strong trade winds blow without cessation north and south on either side of the equator for the space of more than twelve hundred miles, and the northern latitude of calms and prevailing westerly winds were not yet known. Twice Saavedra beat his way eastward among the strange islands of Papua and Melanesia, only to be at last driven back upon Tidor and there to die. The survivors were forced to abandon the Moluccas. By surrendering to the Portuguese they were assisted to return to Europe by way of Malacca, Ceylon, and Africa, and they arrived at Lisbon in 1536, the survivors of Loaisa's expedition, having been gone from Spain eleven years. The efforts of the Spanish crown to obtain possession of the Spice Islands, the Celebes and Moluccas, with their coveted products of nutmeg, cinnamon, and pepper, were for the time being ended. By the Treaty of Zaragoza (1529) the Emperor, Charles V., for the sum of three hundred and fifty thousand gold ducats, renounced all claim to the Moluccas. For thirteen years the provisions of this treaty were respected by the Spaniards, and then another attempt was made to obtain a foothold in the East Indies. The Second Expedition to the Philippines.--The facts that disaster had overwhelmed so many, that two oceans must be crossed, and that no sailing-route from Asia back to America was known, did not deter the Spaniards from their perilous conquests; and in 1542 another expedition sailed from Mexico, under command of Lopez de Villalobos, to explore the Philippines and if possible to reach China. Across the Pacific they made a safe and pleasant voyage. In the warm waters of the Pacific they sailed among those wonderful coral atolls, rings of low shore, decked with palms, grouped in beautiful archipelagoes, whose appearance has never failed to delight the navigator, and whose composition is one of the most interesting subjects known to students of the earth's structure and history. Some of these coral islands Villalobos took possession of in the name of Spain. These were perhaps the Pelew Islands or the Carolines.