disposition which they had before exhibited towards Vasco da Gama, and at once murdered all the colonists. Cabral then cannonaded Calicut, and proceeded to Cannanore and Cochin, at both of which places he was favourably received, for their Hindu Rājās were unwilling tributaries to the Zamorin of Calicut and his Moplas; and after purchasing great stores of pepper and other Indian commodities, the Portuguese admiral left establishments at these two places to open up trade, and returned home. In 1502, Vasco da Gama arrived for the second time on the Malabar coast with twenty ships, and after again cannonading Calicut, and destroying all the shipping in the port, he strengthened the factories at Cochin and Cannanore and returned. On his departure, Vincente Sodre, one of the officers he had left, deserted the factory and set up as a pirate in the Arabian seas, being the first of those Portuguese adventurers in the Eastern seas whose stories read like romances. In 1503, three separate Portuguese squadrons under the command respectively of Francisco de Alboquerque, Affonso de Alboquerque, and Antonio de Saldanha, reached India, and the first of these captains gave effective assistance to the Rājā of Cochin, who had been attacked by the Zamorin for his welcome of the Portuguese, and was being besieged in the island of Vypin. Francisco de Alboquerque was only just in time, and to guard against such extremities in the future, he built a strong fort, guarded with artillery, at Cochin, and when the three captains departed they left there a garrison of nine hundred men, under the command of Duarte Pacheco. This officer performed the first great feat of arms which illustrated the history of the Portuguese in India; with his small garrison, enfeebled by sickness, he not only drove back the great army which the Zamorin sent against Cochin, but utterly defeated five thousand of his best troops in open battle. This victory established the reputation of the Portuguese in India as soldiers; the factories now found no difficulty in purchasing all the goods they needed at a reasonable price; and what was more important, the fame of Pacheco spread abroad, and he was able to send envoys into the interior of India, who were everywhere favourably received, and generally returned laden with presents. Pacheco’s success inspired the Portuguese monarch with the idea that he could not only absorb the Indian trade, but could conquer India, and Emmanuel decided that a powerful imperial government should be established on the Malabar coast, instead of isolated factories. [Illustration: ALBOQUERQUE. (_From the Sloane MS. 197, folio 11._)]