to God," runs their summons in 1539. It denounces the aggressions "of the Christians of Portugal," and warns an Indian prince that, if he holds back, his "soul will descend into hell."
To "the martyrs' blood" of the Portuguese and the relic of the Blessed Rood from Abyssinia, the Moslems oppose their "Holy Fleet." First the Arabs of the Indian ports supply "the fighters for the faith." Then the Mamluk Sultan of Cairo sends armaments. Finally enters on the scene the mighty power of the Turkish empire, which deemed its subjugation of Egypt incomplete as long as the Portuguese threatened the Red Sea. The Arabs of the Indian ports quickly succumbed to the cavaliers of the Cross. The Mamluk Sultans of Egypt, hard pushed by the Ottomans from the north, could make no headway against the Portuguese in the east. But the Turks, or "Rumes," turned back the tide of Christian conquest in Asia.
The cry "the Rumes are coming," which afflicted Albuquerque, for ever resounded in the ears of his successors. When the Portuguese closed the Malabar shore route to the Moslem world, the Arab ships struck boldly across the Indian Ocean from Aden to south of Ceylon, passing through the Maldive Islands or far out at sea. When the Portuguese secured the strong position of Diu at the north entrance to Indian waters, the Turks constantly harassed that station and tried to outflank it by menacing the Portuguese factories westwards on the Persian Gulf. When the Portuguese sought the enemy in the Red Sea, they were often repulsed, and
