STRUGGLES FOR ADEN 125 Turk. In 1516 the Sultan of Cairo failed, as Albu- querque had failed, to capture Aden. Soon after there came an overwhelming fleet of forty Portuguese ships and three thousand soldiers, and the battered fortress offered to surrender. But the fleet sailed on to attack the Moslem navy in the Red Sea, and by the time it got back to Aden the defences were repaired and the offer was withdrawn. The Turks, when they wrested Egypt from the Mamluk Sultans in 1517, perceived that Aden was necessary to complete their conquest. During the struggle which followed, the Aden ruler submitted at moments to the Portuguese. In 1524 and again in 1530 he " ren- dered himself a vassal to Dom Joao of Portugal " and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, with the gift of " a crown of gold ' as first- fruits to his Majesty. Such submissions, how- ever, were merely Arab feints to gain a breathing- space. In 1538 Solyman the Magnificent closed the struggle by an expedition which captured Aden. But even the forces of the Ottoman empire at its zenith only won the place by stratagem. The Turkish sail- ors were carried ashore on beds pleading for the hos- AFFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE. After an old print.
