They not only drained the Ottoman resources by intercepting the flow of wealth from India to Egypt and Constantinople. They also compelled a diversion of the Turkish fighting power from the Mediterranean to the Eed Sea. The "martyrs' blood" of the Portuguese, poured forth during a century on the Indian Ocean, was a constant factor in the conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottomans in Europe—that long grapple between Christianity and Islam fought out on the line of the Danube and summed up by the sea-fight of Lepanto (1571).
The story of Portugal's work in Asia will, I trust, be one day told to the English-speaking world in a manner worthy of the theme. For such a history ample materials, printed and manuscript, are now available. My present object is merely to bring into view the struggle between Islam and Christendom for the Indian Ocean in the century preceding the appearance of the English on the scene. I dare not expand these preliminary chapters by the deeds of heroism and chivalrous devotion on both sides. Nor is it permitted to me to attempt even the most rapid sketch of the separate expeditions, with their skilful combination of sea and land power, which secured the triumph of Portugal on the Indian coast-line. I have had to mention the successive armaments sent forth during the years following Da Gama's discovery, for almost each of them marked a stage in the swift development of the Portuguese power in the East. But the long rule of Affonso Albuquerque gave fixity to the programme. It becomes possible,
