Though he cared little about the sea and ships, King Manuel was interested in riches and power. The world trade in pepper and other spices was very important in this respect. In the centuries before refrigeration, spices were widely used for preserving food. For many years, Arab traders had grown rich, bringing spices to Europe from the East, by way of the Arabian Sea and Africa. King Manuel now commissioned an armada of twenty-two fighting ships to chase away the Arab traders from the African coast and the surrounding seas. This left the way open for Portuguese tr- aders to bring pepper, cloves and nutmeg to Europe by the new sea routes to and from the East. This was Magellan's chance. He asked again for leave of abse- nce form the court, in order to join the armada. This time the king agreed, and in 1505, Magellan, aged twenty-five, went to sea. Magellan was put in charge of a swift-moving galley and he and his crew sankmany Arab craft along the coast of East Africa. He was wounded while helping to defeat a large Arab fleet near the port of Diu in north-west India. But Magellan was more interested in exploration than fighting. The king rewarded him with the command of a ship and he joined a Portuguese expedition sailing down the Malacca Strait between Sumatra and Malaya and on to the fabled Spice Islands (now part of Indonesia). From there, he set course across what one chronicler called 'seas no Christian man has yet entered into'. At the very limit of the then known world, he discovered parts of the Philippine Islands. Instead of returning to honour and fame in Portugal, Magellan, after six years at sea, found himself in great trouble.