back westwards, and, after penetrating into the Red Sea, and building a fortress at Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, returned to Goa only to die in 1515. In 1524 Vasco da Gama came out to the East for the third time, and he too died at Cochin. For exactly a century, from 1500 to 1600, the Portuguese enjoyed a monopoly of Oriental trade. Decline of the Portuguese. Their three objects were conquest, commerce and conversion, and for all three their position on the Malabar coast strip was remarkably well adapted. Shut off by the line of the Ghats from Mahommedan India of that day, they were able to dominate the petty chiefs of Malabar, who welcomed maritime commerce, and allowed religious freedom in their domains. Their trade relations with Vijayanagar were very close, when that great empire was at the height of its power; but in 1564 Vijayanagar went down before the five Mahommedan states of southern India on the field of Talikota, and with its fall began the decline of Portugal. During the whole of the 16th century the Portuguese disputed with the Mahommedans the supremacy of the Indian seas, and the antagonism between Christianity and Islam became gradually more intense, until the Portuguese power assumed a purely religious aspect. In 1560 the Inquisition with all its horrors was introduced into Goa. But Portugal was too small a country to keep up the struggle for long. The drain of men told upon her vitality, their quality deteriorated, and their bigotry and intolerance raised even a fiercer opposition to them within the bounds of India; and as the Dutch and British came into prominence the Portuguese gradually faded away. In 1603 and 1639 the Dutch blockaded Goa; during the first half of the 17th century they routed the Portuguese everywhere in India, Ceylon and Java. Similarly in 1611 the British defeated them off Cambay and in 1615 won a great victory at Swally. After the middle of the 17th century the Asiatic trade of Portugal practically disappeared, and now only Goa, Daman and Diu are left to her as relics of her former greatness. Dutch settlements.