DA GAMA'S SECOND VOYAGE TO INDIA 89 ^ leaves, to the raja to make a curry of. The teeth of the prisoners were beaten down their throats with staves. A Brahman messenger was compelled to confess him- self a spy under the torture of live coals. His lips and ears were cut off, the ears of a dog an unclean ani- malwere sewn to his head, and the mutilated wretch was returned to the Zamorin. Da Gama's flag-captain, Vincente Sodre, revenged some insulting words, real or imaginary, of which the Cannanore raja complained, by flogging the chief Arab merchant of the place till he fainted, filling his mouth with dirt, and tying over it a piece of bacon. Da Gama returned a second time triumphant to Lis- bon in 1503. But he left the Zamorin and the Arab mer- chants burning to avenge the tortures and outrages he had inflicted. They attacked the Cochin raja, seized his capital, and demanded the surrender of the Portuguese factors left under his protection. The Cochin chief bravely held out in spite of defeats and distresses until relieved by the arrival of the next fleet from Portugal in September, 1503. Two divisions of that fleet under Affonso de Albu- querque and his cousin Francisco de Albuquerque laid the foundation of the shore defences of the Portuguese in India. The third division under Antonio Saldanha explored the east African coast, plundering and burn- ing such Moorish craft as it met right up to the Red Sea, and thus initiated the policy of cutting off the Indian Mussulman trade from its Egyptian base. The squadron left behind under Da Gama's flag-captain
