Sumatra Insula

Early map of Sumatra and the Malacca Straits from Hondius’ Atlas Minor, based on a map by Jan Huygen van Linschoten, issued in his Travel Accounts of Portuguese Navigation in the Orient (1595), which, for the first time, included secret Portuguese information on the trading routes to the East Indies. Linschoten was in the employ of the Archbishop of Goa and, while in that privileged position, copied navigational information and maps of the Portuguese trading routes. In his Travel Accounts, Linschoten suggested approaching the East Indies from the south of Sumatra through the Sunda Strait, in order to avoid the Portuguese presence in the Malacca Strait.