A Japanese encyclopædia, of quite recent date, quoted in Siebold’s work, besides giving Kublai Khan’s letter of summons, asserts that the Mongol fleet was met and defeated, after which, other Mongol envoys being sent to Japan, they were summoned into the presence of the Shōgun, by whom a decree was promulgated that no Mongol should land in Japan under pain of death. And it is even pretended that under this decree the persons composing two subsequent missions sent by Kublai Khan, in 1276 and 1279, were all put to death. This was followed, according to the same authority, by the appearance of a new Mongol-Corean fleet, in 1281, off the island of Hirado. This fleet was destroyed by a hurricane. Those who escaped to the shore were taken prisoners and executed, only three being saved to carry to Kublai Khan the news of this disaster. All these additions, however, to the story—the letter of Kublai Khan, the murder of the ambassadors, and the double invasion—may safely enough be set down as Japanese inventions.[9] CHAPTER II _Portuguese Empire in the East—Discovery of Japan—Galvano’s Account of it—Fernam Mendez Pinto’s Account of his First Visit to Japan, and Adventures there—Japanese Account of the First Arrival of Portuguese, A. D. 1542-1545._ Vasco da Gama, by the route of the Cape of Good Hope, entered the Indian Ocean in November, 1497, and, after coasting the African continent as far north as Melinda, arrived in May, 1498, at Calicut, on the Malabar or southwestern coast of the peninsula of Hindustan,—a discovery speedily followed, on the part of the Portuguese, by extensive Eastern explorations, mercantile enterprises, and conquests. The trade of Europe with the East in silks, spices, and other luxuries, chiefly carried on for two or three centuries preceding, so far as related to their distribution through Europe, by the Venetians, aided in the north by the Hanse towns, and, so far as the collection of the articles of it throughout the East was concerned, by the Arabs (Cairo, in Egypt, being the point of exchange), was soon transferred to the Portuguese; and Lisbon, enriched by this transfer, which the Mahometan traders and the Venetians struggled in vain to prevent, rose rapidly, amid the decline of numerous rivals, to great commercial wealth and prosperity, and the headship of European commerce.