Fra Mauro's map.]

Their instructions to banish every Mohammedan in Calicut was
faithfully obeyed. Don Vasco seized and hanged a number of helpless
merchants quietly trading in the harbour. Cutting off their heads,
hands, and feet, he had them flung into a boat, which was allowed to
drift ashore, with a cruel suggestion that the severed limbs would
make an Indian curry. Once more Calicut was bombarded and Don Vasco
sailed on to other ports on the Malabar coast, where he loaded his
ships with spices taken from poor folk who dared not refuse. He then
sailed home again, reaching Portugal "safe and sound, _Deo gratias_,"
but leaving behind him hatred and terror and a very quaint idea of
these Christians who felt it their duty to exterminate all followers
of Mohammed.

Conquest usually succeeds discovery, and the Portuguese, having
discovered the entire coast of West, South, and a good deal of East
Africa and western coast of India, now proceeded to conquer it for
their own. It was a far cry from Portugal to India in these days, and
the isolated depots on the coast of Malabar were obviously in danger,
when the foreign ships laden with spoil left their shores. True, Vasco
da Gama had left six little ships this time under Sodrez to cruise
about the Indian seas, but Sodrez wanted treasure, so he cruised
northwards and found the southern coasts of Arabia as well as the island
of Socotra. He had been warned of the tempestuous seas that raged about
these parts at certain seasons, but, heeding not the warning, he
perished with all his knowledge and treasure.

Expedition after expedition now left Portugal for the east coast of
Africa and India. There were the two cousins Albuquerque, who built
a strong fort of wood and mud at Cochin, leaving a garrison of one
hundred and fifty trained soldiers under the command of one Pacheco,
who saved the fort and kept things going under great difficulties.
On the return of Albuquerque, the hero of Cochin, the King decided
to appoint a Viceroy of India. He would fain have appointed Tristan
d'Acunha,--the discoverer of the island that still bears his
name,--but he was suddenly struck with blindness, and in his stead
Dom Francisco Almeida, "a nobleman of courage and experience," sailed
off with the title of Viceroy. Not only was he to conquer, but to command,
not only to sustain the sea-power of Portugal, but to form a government.

There is a story told of the ignorance of the men sent to man t