Dana and Ricci’s Voyage During the middle ages, tens of thousands of people decided to venture in the sea, as it was one of the most profitable and masculine undertakes at the time. Among them, there were ambitious young men such as Dana who aspired to make a mark and explore the world; there were also Jesuits such as Mateo Ricci who traveled across the world to spread Catholicism. Similarly, both of their stories were told through lives. Overall, their voyages were vastly different in the crew culture and purpose despite some of the minor similarities. Dana came from a wealthy family and decided to enlist as seamen on the Pilgrim. However, the experience was not one he had anticipated, as the conditions were horrific and the interpersonal …show more content…
Both the Alert and the Pilgrim were used to trade goods to America ports while the Portuguese traveled the South East Asia in order to spread Catholicism. The dissimilarity in the geological locations of the destinations of the voyages meant that they would likely face natural challenges of completely different nature. For example, the seasonal storms in the East Indian Ocean usually continues for months while even though they did encounter storms as such in the trip to America, they were much shorter. Furthermore, the Portuguese “Carrack” vessels were gigantic ships compare to the Pilgrim and the Alert. These Carracks weighted from 400 to 2000 tons, and they were capable of carrying more than twenty guns and 100 crewmembers onboard. On the other hand, there was a 200 years gap between Dana’s voyage and the Portuguese voyage. At the time, the Portuguese were only were of existing ocean routes such as the one Da Gamma took to India and the established trading networks around the Portuguese town Boa. Spence emphasizes that even though many oceanic routes were discovered, most of the world still remained unknown. For instance, Spence introduced Mateo Ricci’s world map constructed in Peking, which wrongly locates parts of Africa, America, and a number of other continents (Spence, 1984). As for Dana’s voyages, people at the time were much more experienced in dealing eventualities on the ocean. Dana got a tooth infection, which resulted in swelling up of his face and was unable to work. Fortunately, the infection did not result in his death, which was highly likely to happen on the Portuguese