ABSTRACT
The passage to India, for young men in sixteenth-century Portugal, was a recurring opportunity for a wondrous adventure. Every year, in March or April, the king’s great carracks sailed for an Asian destination from Belém, downriver from Lisbon, where recruits congregated awaiting service aboard the ships as sailors, soldiers, and gunners, or as specialists such as carpenters, caulkers, ropemakers, and cooks.
