of her own free will; and when she was proceeding to this
self-sacrifice it was with great merrymaking and blowing of music,
saying that she desired to accompany her husband to the other
world. But the wife who would not so burn herself was thrust out
from among the others, and lived by gaining, by means of her body,
support for the maintenance of the pagoda of which she was a
votary. However, when Affonso de Albuquerque took the city of Goa,
he forbad from that time forward, that any more women should be
burned; and although to change one's customs is equal to death
itself, nevertheless they were happy to save their lives, and spoke
very highly of him because he had ordered that there should be no
more burning.'[5]

[Footnote 5: Albuquerque's _Commentaries_, vol. ii. p. 94.]

Albuquerque, like Warren Hastings and other English
governors-general, understood the importance of keeping his employer
in a good temper by looking after his commercial interests. In all
his despatches he always set forth the commercial {161} advantages of
his different conquests, and excused his imperial ideas by defending
them on commercial grounds. Nothing more need be said here on the
general question of the advantages and history of the direct trade
route round the Cape of Good Hope, but some special instances of
Albuquerque's sagacity in commercial matters deserve record. His
establishment of a Portuguese factory at Malacca is a striking
example of his sagacity. He perceived that though the pepper and
ginger which was taken on board in the Malabar ports was grown in
India, the cinnamon purchased there chiefly came from Ceylon, and the
spices from the Malay Peninsula and the Spice Islands. He therefore
took steps to open up a direct trade in cinnamon with Ceylon, and
made his famous expedition to Malacca. By such measures he hoped to
avoid having to pay the middleman's profits for conveying these
commodities to India.

A smaller point also deserves notice. When the Portuguese factory was
established at Cochin certain prices were fixed which had to be paid
in gold to the Raja's officers for the commodities required. This
necessitated a considerable export of bullion from Portugal or else
the forced sale of European goods. When Albuquerque was able to
dictate terms to the new ruler of Calicut, he bargained that the
products of India should be exchanged for merchandise brought from
Portugal, and not sold for ready mon