Finding that their profits from the trade with the East Indies were thus practically extinguished, their only course was to go to those distant lands themselves. How to get there was the question; and this was a secret which the Portuguese navigators had carefully guarded. The Dutch knew that they were reached by some southern route which could only be traversed by force of arms, but thought that the lands where one might “swim in golden lard” might be reached by a north-east passage. Dutch ships vainly attempted this in 1594 and 1596, being barred by the ice. In the meantime, Corneliz Houtman had managed to buy some Portuguese charts, and thus to learn the real route around the Cape. He induced ten merchants of Amsterdam to form a “Foreign Company” (_van verre_) and send out a sort of exploring expedition. This first attempt was made on no lavish scale. The ships could not hope to fight the mighty Portuguese armed carracks. The four ships of this first voyage were the _Maurice_, 400 tons; the _Amsterdam_, 200 tons; the _Dove_, 30 tons; and the _Holland_, 400 tons. They left Texel early in April, 1595, and arrived home in August, 1597. Their glowing reports encouraged the despatch of a second flotilla of eight ships in 1598, four of which went to the Moluccas and the rest no farther than Bantam, returning with rich cargoes of spices and other merchandise. Several other companies were started in consequence, but in 1602 they were all consolidated with a capital of 6,440,000 florins, and the Dutch East India Company was established. The Dutch navigators and travellers who sailed the Vanderdecken course to the Spice Islands, naturally, on their return, gave their fellow-countrymen a full account of the wealth and curiosities of art they had witnessed in India, Polynesia, China and Japan. Two or three of these, not being foreign to our subject, may be quoted here. The Netherland East India Company sent an embassy to the Emperor of China in 1655, and the reporter was evidently most interested in supplying his fellow-countrymen with the secrets of the manufacture of porcelain, which the Dutch were trying to imitate with their delft ware. He says: “Upon the 25th of April we came to a village famous for shipping called Ucienjen, where lay great store of vessels of several sorts and sizes, which were come thither from all parts of China, to lade with China earthenware, whereof great store is sold in this village.... Quite through the middle of this rich village rims a broad street, full of shops on both sides, where all manner of commodities are sold; but the chiefest trade is in Purceline, or China dishes, which is to be had there in great abundance....