It must here be observed that we are again anticipating matters. As soon as the discovery of the New World was announced, the Pope was appealed to, to determine the relative shares of Spain and Portugal in the discoveries which would clearly follow upon Columbus's voyage. By his Bull, dated 4th May 1493, Alexander VI. granted all discoveries to the west to Spain, leaving it to be understood that all to the east belonged to Portugal. The line of demarcation was an imaginary one drawn from pole to pole, and passing one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, which were supposed, in the inaccurate geography of the time, to be in the same meridian. In the following year the Portuguese monarch applied for a revision of the _raya_, as this would keep him out of all discovered in the New World altogether; and the line of demarcation was then shifted 270 leagues westward, or altogether 1110 miles west of the Cape Verdes. By a curious coincidence, within six years Cabral had discovered Brazil, which fell within the angle thus cut off by the _raya_ from South America. Or was it entirely a coincidence? May not Cabral have been directed to take this unusually westward course in order to ascertain if any land fell within the Portuguese claims? When, however, the Spice Islands were discovered, it remained to be discussed whether the line of demarcation, when continued on the other side of the globe, brought them within the Spanish or Portuguese "sphere of influence," as we should say nowadays. By a curious chance they happened to be very near the line, and, with the inaccurate maps of the period, a pretty subject of quarrel was afforded between the Portuguese and Spanish commissioners who met at Badajos to determine the question. This was left undecided by the Junta, but by a family compact, in 1529, Charles V. ceded to his brother-in-law, the King of Portugal, any rights he might have to the Moluccas, for the sum of 350,000 gold ducats, while he himself retained the Philippines, which have been Spanish ever since. By this means the Indian Ocean became, for all trade purposes, a Portuguese lake throughout the sixteenth century, as will be seen from the preceding map, showing the trading stations of the Portuguese all along the shores of the ocean. But they only possessed their monopoly for fifty years, for in 1580 the Spanish and Portuguese crowns became united on the head of Philip II., and by the time Portugal recovered its independence, in 1640, serious rivals had arisen to compete with her and Spain for the monopoly of the Eastern trade. [_Authorities_: Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, 1869; Beazeley, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, 1895; F. Hummerich, _Vasco da Gama_, 1896.] CHAPTER VII TO THE INDIES WESTWARD--THE SPANISH ROUTE--COLUMBUS AND MAGELLAN