From the Malabar coast in the south to Karachi in the north of India, Portuguese traders grew active, but, owing to the fierceness and determination of the natives, it was found impossible for some years to permanently occupy any territory, until Goa was established in 1510, as the center of Portuguese interests. A year earlier than this, Malacca had been subjugated, and the exploration of Sumatra undertaken; while three years later, Francisco Serrao discovered the Moluccas, the far-famed islands from which Venice and Genoa had so long drawn their stores of valuable spices by the overland route through India and Persia, or by the Red Sea and Isthmus of Suez. To divert this traffic round the Cape of Good Hope, expeditions were fitted out against Muscat and Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, and Aden at the entrance to the Red Sea. While, then, the Spanish colonists were searching for gold in sufficient quantities to make the enterprise pay, much less realize fortunes, the Portuguese tapped the source of wealth of the great mercantile communities of the Middle Ages; and, monopolizing it themselves, rendered their country for a time the richest in the world. Of the numerous governors dispatched by Portugal to the east, the Duke of Albuquerque was the most active, and accomplished the greatest results. Serving under him in various capacities was Ferrao Magalhaes, or Maghallanes, a young nobleman who sought on every possible occasion to distinguish himself. Returning home, he did not receive the reward he considered his due; and though he continued to agitate at court, and to urge his claims, on the further ground that since his arrival from the east he had taken part in an African campaign, and been permanently lamed, he was either repulsed or put off with some trifling concession. This rankling in his mind, he determined to divest himself of his nationality, and offer his services to Spain, the patron of all foreign adventurers. By the Papal Bull, Spain was debarred from undertaking any enterprise in the East. This was, of course, well known to Magalhaes, or Ferdinand Magellan, as he now chose to call himself, but he had carefully thought the matter out, and arrived at a conclusion of his own. He had heard much of the ideas which led to the discovery of America, and though other and more important matters then engaged the attention of Spain than the discovery of Japan and China by the western route, he still considered the plan feasible. He intimated to the Emperor Charles V., then king of Spain, his desire to be intrusted with an expedition, with which he would undertake to reach the Moluccas from the west, and so prove that they belonged by right to Spain.