During the first decade of trade with the East Indies, a Dutch retourschip leaving Texel bound for the East Indies followed the old route that Arab and Portuguese sailors took—south
down the west coast of Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, northeast through the Mozambique Channel and across the Indian Ocean, sometimes via India or Ceylon.
In the 1590s, the Dutch began to turn their attention to the East Indies, the lands and islands of Southeast Asia, and in time this interest grew into a vast moneymaking concern.
