There was all the East before me

From Youth: A Narrative by Joseph Conrad.

There was all the East before me, and all life, and the thought that I had been tried in that ship and had come out pretty well. And I thought of men of old who, centuries ago, went that road in ships that sailed no better, to the land of palms, and spices, and yellow sands, and of brown nations ruled by kings more cruel than Nero the Roman and more splendid than Solomon the Jew.

I am reading a rather excellent account of the maritime conflicts in the Indian Ocean during the Napoleonic wars, Storm and Conquest: The Clash of Empires in the Eastern Seas, 1809 by Stephen Taylor. Highly recommended.

Conrad, a hundred years later, caught some of the maritime magic of the Indian Ocean.