Portuguese discoveries a ground-breaking voyage commanded by Vasco da Gama. The squadron of Vasco da Gama left Portugal in 1497, rounded the Cape and continued along the coast of East Africa, where a local pilot was brought on board who guided them across the Indian Ocean, reaching Calicut in western India in May 1498. The second voyage to India was dispatched in 1500 under Pedro Álvares Cabral. While following the same south-westerly route as Gama across the Atlantic Ocean, Cabral made landfall on the Brazilian coast. This was probably an accidental discovery, but it has been speculated that the Portuguese secretly knew
An embassy from the East-India Company growth of Chinoiserie in the arts. Many subsequent artists and architects based their work on Nieuhof's pictures. An embassy from the East-India Company An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces is a book written by Dutch author and explorer Johan Nieuhof. The full title of the English version of the book is "An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, emperor of China: delivered by their excellencies Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keyzer, at his imperial city of Peking wherein the cities, towns, villages, ports, rivers, &c. in their