Note 73 — Chapter XII · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

The trade in cloves must have brought the Moluccas into contact with the islanders of the western half of the Archipelago from very early times, and the converted Javanese and other Malays who came into these islands to trade, spread their faith among the inhabitants of the coast.73 The companions of Magellan brought back a curious story of the way in which these men introduced their religious doctrines among the Muluccans. “The kings of these islands74 a few years before the arrival of the Spaniards began to believe in the immortality of the soul, induced by no other argument but that they had seen a very beautiful little bird, that never settled on the earth nor on anything that was of the earth, and the Mahometans, who traded as merchants in those islands, told them that this little bird was born in paradise, and that paradise is the place where rest the souls of those that are dead. And for this reason these seignors joined the sect of Mahomet, because it promises many marvellous things of this place of the souls.”75