CHAPTER IV THE POETUGUESE POLICY IN THE EAST 1500 - 1600 THE actual achievement of Portugal in Asia was not a land-empire, but the overlordship of the sea. Her sphere of influence stretched eastwards across the vast basin six thousand miles from the African coast to the Moluccas, and northward four thousand miles from the Cape of Good Hope to the Persian Gulf. Her political frontier, that is the line which she had more or less continuously to hold, was not defended by rivers or mountains. It was the open edge of the ocean follow- ing, at the height of the Portuguese power, a sinuous route from Natal northeast to Ormuz, from Ormuz southeast to Cape Comorin, from Comorin northeast again to Bengal, then southeast to Malacca, Java, and the Spice Islands a jagged semicircle of over fifteen thousand miles. That a small European nation, then numbering perhaps not more than a million of souls, should continue to hold this frontier was impossible when stronger European rivals came upon the scene. That Portugal should have held it for a century against the Mussulman world is an enduring glory to herself and to Christendom. How to make the most of her slender resources in 113
