Meanwhile, in 1577, Sir Francis Drake had circumnavigated the globe, and on his way home had touched at Ternate, one of the Moluccas, the king of which island agreed to supply the English nation with all the cloves it produced.
When one remembers that missionaries like Piano Carpini, and traders like the Venetian Polos, either penetrated by land from Acre to Peking, or circumnavigated southern Asia from Basra to Canton, one realizes that there was, about 1300, a discovery of Asia as new and tremendous as the discovery of America by Columbus two centuries later.
After he had observed the transit of Venus at Tahiti, he circumnavigated New Zealand and went in search of the eastern coast of the great continent whose western shores had long been known to the Dutch.
It was circumnavigated by one of their vessels in 1525, and the general outline of the coasts is correctly given in their maps at a time when separate portions of Celebes, such as Macassar and Menado, are represented as distinct islands.
Two hours later and we have finally circumnavigated the points-of-view of the people sitting round the table.