which they divided--directing it, through the cities of Juda and Meca, to the interior of their lands; and, by the gulf and port of Suez, to Alexandria. Number 25. Commerce of India confined to Portugal The Turks did not enjoy the commerce for many years, for after the year 1497 [26] the Lusitanian banners in India conquered their coasts, and the Portuguese, masters of the navigation of the Orient, blockaded the ports of the two gulfs--the Persian and the Arabic--with their fleets, preventing the entrance of that commerce there; and, conducting it by the Atlantic Ocean, they made the great city of Lisboa universal ruler over all that India produces. Thither [_i.e._, to Lisboa] resorted immediately not only the European nations, but also those from Africa and Asia, by which they despoiled the Turks of the source of their greatest incomes, forcing them to beg from these kingdoms what all had formerly bought from theirs. The wealth of Portugal increased so greatly by the commerce of India that, in the time of the king Don Manuel, payments of money in copper were more esteemed than those in gold. That trade furnished the profits with which to maintain wars, squadrons, and great presidios in the Orient, with which the Portuguese defended their coasts and seas, not only from the native kings, but also from the fleets that the Turks sent up through the Red Sea in order to recover what they so resented losing. Those fleets always returned either conquered or without the result for which they had sailed, until, having lost hopes of the restoration of that commerce through their lands, they desisted from the attempt--contenting themselves with some ships which, with the danger of encountering the Portuguese ships, they take to certain ports and lade with such spice as the fear of robbers allows them to take. Number 26. Entrance of the Dutch into India, and their commerce