SPREAD OF THE PORTUGUESE EAST INDIAN EMPIRE—ALPHONZO D'ALBUQUERQUE—IMMENSE SACRIFICE OF LIFE—ANCIENT ROUTE OF THE SPICE-TRADE WITH EUROPE—COMMERCE BY CARAVANS—REVOLUTION PRODUCED BY OPENING THE NEW ROUTE—FRANCESCO ALMEIDA—DISCOVERY OF CEYLON—TRISTAN D'ACUNHA—THE PORTUGUESE MARS—HIS VIEWS OF EMPIRE—AN ARSENAL ESTABLISHED AT GOA—REDUCTION OF MALACCA—SIAM AND SUMATRA SEND EMBASSIES TO ALBUQUERQUE—THE ISLAND OF ORMUZ—DEATH OF ALBUQUERQUE—EXTENT OF THE PORTUGUESE DOMINION—ORMUZ BECOMES THE GREAT EMPORIUM OF THE EAST—FALL OF THE PORTUGUESE EMPIRE.

Having narrated, in the preceding chapters, the incidents which led to the circumnavigation of Africa, and having described the several voyages which introduced the Europeans into the East, by the new route of the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Tempests, we must briefly allude to the sequel,—the spread of European commerce among the islands and seaports of this highly favored region. Alphonzo and Francesco d'Albuquerque, with a fleet of nine vessels, and Edoardo Pacheco, with three vessels, carried terror and revenge to the Malabar coast: forts were built to protect the Portuguese commerce, kings were forced to pay tribute, fleets were swept from the seas; and, as a proverb of the time expressed it, pepper began to cost blood. Again the King of Portugal sent out a formidable squadron,—thirteen ships of the line, the largest yet constructed, under Lopez Soarez. Sea-battles now took place, in which the proportions of the slain were one thousand infidels to seventy-five Portuguese,—in which a single European vessel contended successfully with myriads of the native barks. The sacrifice of life was truly awful; but gradually the whole eastern coast of Africa, and, opposite to it, the whole western coast of India, fell under Portuguese sway.

The entire commerce of this quarter of the world was of course revolutionized by these discoveries and conquests. Before this period the productions of the East had been carried to Europe in the following manner. The city of Malacca, in the peninsula of the same name, was the central market to which came the camphor of Borneo, the cloves of the Moluccas, the nutmegs of Banda, the pepper of Sumatra, the gums, drugs, and perfumes of China, Japan, and Siam. These products were taken by water, either in the clumsy boats of the natives or the more solid vessels of the Moors, to the ports of the Red Sea, were landed at Tor or at Suez, whence they were transported by caravans to Cairo, and thence by the Nile to Alexandria, where they were placed on board of vessels bound to all the ports of Europe. Those intended for Armenia, Trebizonde, Aleppo, Damascus, were taken by the Persian Gulf to Bassorah, and thence distributed by caravans. The Venetians and Genoese took their portion at Beyrout, in Syria. The East Indians preferred the manufactures of Europe to gold and silver, and consequently the trade was generally in the form of barter and exchange. In addition to the products of Farther India which we have mentioned must be added those of India Proper,—the fabrics of Bengal, the pearls of Orissa, the diamonds of Golconda, the cinnamon of Ceylon, the pepper of Malabar.

Thus, not only thousands of laborers, sailors, conductors of caravans, saw themselves suddenly deprived of their livelihood by this diversion of the traffic into the hands of the Portuguese, but rich cities lost their revenues and princes lost their tribute. While the Venetians resolved to appeal to arms, the Sultan of Egypt addressed a protestation to Rome. But the King of Portugal tranquillized the Pope by declaring his intention of extending the jurisdiction of the apostolic faith, and he prepared to resist violence by sending out, in 1507, Don Francesco Almeida, with twenty-two ships and fifteen hundred regular soldiers: he bestowed upon the new commander the title of Viceroy of the Indies. Almeida deposed the King of Quiloa, and crowned another of his own appointment; he built a fort in twenty days, garrisoned it with one hundred and fifty men, and left a brigantine and a caravel to scour and protect the coast. He bombarded Mombassa, killed fifteen hundred men and lost five. He erected forts and established trading stations at Onor, Cananor, Surat and Calicut, upon the Malabar coast. To the important point of Sofala, upon the African coast, Emmanuel sent a distinct expedition of six ships, under Pedro da Nayha and Juan da Quiros, who compelled the king to admit their nation to a share in the famous gold mines which constituted his kingdom and his wealth. In 1508, Lorenzo, the son of Almeida, while chasing the flying Moors with six men-of-war, discovered the island of Ceylon, to the south of Hindustan. Here he found the Moors and natives loading vessels with elephants and cinnamon.

Again King Emmanuel, drawing upon resources which seemed almost inexhaustible, sent out thirteen vessels, with thirteen hundred men, under Tristan d'Acunha. This fleet was driven to the coast of Brazil, and upon the way thence to the Cape of Good Hope the commander discovered the islands which now bear his name. He burned and pillaged the town of Oja, near Melinda; he reduced a neighboring shah to the payment of an annual tribute of six hundred golden ducats. His soldiers would not give the captured women of Brava time to remove their bracelets and ear-rings, but in their ruthless haste cut off their arms and ears.

It was now evident to the King of Portugal that his rule in the East could not be consolidated and extended by the same means which had obtained him his first foothold upon the coast,—chance, intrepidity, and unscrupulous violence. What was required was a carefully conceived system of government, and a man capable of administering it. Emmanuel's choice fell upon Alphonzo d'Albuquerque, whose services in the East had already been meritorious, and to whom, in 1509, he gave the title and power of viceroy. Albuquerque, whose courage obtained for him the name of the Portuguese Mars, ranks, by his talents, his severe virtues, and his disinterested zeal, among the greatest men whom the world has produced. He at once formed the plan of founding an empire which should extend from the Persian Gulf to the peninsula of Malacca; and, determining to abandon Calicut, which had thus far been looked upon as the best point for an arsenal, he selected the island of Goa, a little to the north, captured it, and made its admirable harbor a Portuguese roadstead and its town a Portuguese capital. He built bazaars and citadels along the coast from north to south, and then turned his eyes towards Malacca,—a magnificent country, ruled by a despot and inhabited by slaves. As we have said, its principal seaport was the central resort of the ships of China, Japan, Bengal, the Philippines and the Moluccas, Coromandel, Persia, Arabia, and Malabar.

The Portuguese had first visited Malacca two years previously, Emmanuel having sent one Siguiera to make a treaty with the king. He had been perfidiously treated, and Albuquerque now, in 1511, appeared before the city to call the monarch to account. A long and obstinate battle resulted in the defeat of the natives and the unconditional surrender of the peninsula. The Kings of Siam, Sumatra, and Pegu sent ambassadors to Albuquerque, asking the honor of his friendship. He built a citadel and returned to Cochin. But, as he left one spot to repair to another, revolt was sure to follow; and, as the Venetians now joined the Moors to repel the Portuguese, he saw that his dominion could not be complete till he controlled the navigation of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The city of Aden, in Arabia, was the key to the Red Sea, commanding, as it did, the Straits of Babelmandel; and the island of Ormuz was the key to the Persian Gulf. He failed to take Aden, but he succeeded easily with Ormuz, whose king acknowledged himself the vassal of Emmanuel. Albuquerque then formed a gigantic plan in reference to the Red Sea. Unable to command it by the capture of Aden, he determined to ruin Suez, at the other extremity of the sea, by forming an alliance with the King of Ethiopia, and inducing that monarch to dig a new course for the Nile and make it empty into the Red Sea instead of into the Mediterranean, thus rendering Egypt uninhabitable and Suez desert. The invasion of Egypt by the Turks, however, prevented the accomplishment of this undertaking. Thus the people and kings of the East everywhere gave way before the grand plans and deeds of Albuquerque, whom they both feared for his energy and loved for his justice. When, in 1515, he died at Goa, disgraced by his king and worn out by a thankless service, the heathen monarchs wept over his grave, and for many years went in pilgrimage to his tomb, asking his protection against the cruelty or injustice of his successors.

The Portuguese, in little more than fifty years from the first expedition of Vasco da Gama, had established an empire in these seas of truly wonderful extent and power. They held exclusive possession of the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of India Proper, were masters of the Bay of Bengal, ruled the peninsula of Malacca, and held tributary the islands of Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, and the Moluccas. To the westward, towards Africa, their authority extended as far as the Persian boundary, and over all the islands of the Persian Gulf. In Arabia, even, they had tributaries and allies, and no Arabian prince dared confess himself their enemy. They exercised an influence in the Red Sea: and upon the eastern coast of Africa, they were the masters of Quiloa, Sofala, Mozambique, and Melinda.

As Albuquerque had foreseen, Ormuz—from its fortunate situation, as an emporium of trade, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf—became the most important of the Portuguese conquests. The island was by nature little more than a barren rock, and was entirely destitute of water. Its wealth and splendor, however, during the period of its commercial supremacy, gave the world an example of the power of trade which had never yet been witnessed. The trading season lasted from January to March and from August to November: during these months, the houses fronting on the streets were opened like shops, and decorated with piles of porcelain and Indian curiosities, and perfumed with fragrant dwarf shrubs set in gilded vases. Camels laden with skins of water stood at the corners of the streets. The richest wines of Persia and the most costly odors of Asia were offered in profusion to those who visited the city to trade. Thick awnings stretched from roof to roof across the promenades, excluding the rays of the sun. The luxury and magnificence of the place seemed to flow rather from the lavish extravagance of an idle prince than from the legitimate pomp of a stirring and active commercial population.

In 1580, Portugal was conquered and annexed to Spain, and the Portuguese Empire in the East at once declined, and the Dutch Empire sprang up upon its ruins. Ormuz was plundered by the Persians and English united in 1662: the very stones of which its edifices were built were carried away as ballast, and it speedily sank back into its primitive state—a barren and desolate rock. Hardly a vestige of the proud city now remains to vindicate history in its record that here once stood one of the most famous emporiums of commerce and most frequented resorts of man.