Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/198

regard these tribute-paying States as useful buffers between herself and the shock, of Occidental onset, but of course no such idea can have presented itself to her in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, since Europe had then no political existence in her eyes.

The Portuguese were the first to break the interval of seclusion enjoyed by China after the exclusion of the Yuan dynasty of Mongols. Having obtained possession of Malacca in 1511, they naturally turned their eyes towards the land described in such glowing terms by Marco Polo and the Franciscan missionaries. A junk flying the Portuguese flag, under the command of Rafael Perestrello, was sent thither in 1516 by Albuquerque, Captain-General of Malacca. The Chinese understood nothing about Portugal at that time, or indeed for a long time afterwards. But they knew the Portuguese as men of an aggressive tendency who had violently possessed themselves of Malacca, one of the Middle Kingdom's tributaries and therefore entitled to some measure of the latter's protection. Nevertheless, when Perestrello's ship reached the islands at the mouth of the Canton River, her people received a kindly reception and were suffered to effect their tradal purpose successfully. In fact, the Chinese had not then changed their traditional mood of tolerance and liberality. The following year, an enterprise on a more imposing scale was undertaken by the Portuguese at Malacca. They