Thus was the way opened for Europe’s maritime invasion of the East; a process in modern history perhaps of even greater importance than the European occupation of the New World. Ever since Da Gama’s great voyage Southern and Eastern Asia, comprising then as now the most populous nations on the globe, have been gradually falling under the sway of the European powers, who have first appropriated their foreign trade, making permanent settlements on their coasts in order to secure it, thence advanced to controlling their administration and usurping their government, and in some varying degree have succeeded in the more difficult task of gradually changing their habits of life and thought. In all this Europeans have been following in the footsteps of the Mohammadans of Western Asia and Northern Africa; and these had inherited their commercial sphere from remote antiquity. Greek tradition even ascribed the invention of ocean navigation to the aboriginal Erythraeans, who had ploughed the Red Sea long before Phoenicians and Greeks ventured to cross the Mediterranean; and ancient ethnology distinguished these from the Semitic adventurers who in historical times had colonised the islands on the southern coast of Arabia, and not only traded by sea along this coast in its entire length, but frequented the adjacent shores of Africa, and regularly crossed the mouth of the Persian Gulf with the monsoon in search of the commodities of Western India.
The establishment of Islam gave a new and powerful stimulus to all Arabian enterprise. By the end of the fifteenth century there existed from the Red Sea to Japan a valuable and well-organised commerce, mainly in the hands of Arabian or other Muslim seamen and merchants. For the effect of the propagation of Islam had been to bring to the field of Asiatic trade a crowd of adventurers of many nations, many of whom were Turks of Anatolia or Europe. Others were Greeks, Albanians, Circassians, and other Levantines of European descent who had abandoned the Christian faith for gain, and had brought to the Muslim sailors and merchants of the Eastern ocean the knowledge and experience of the Mediterranean peoples. These were generally known in India and the Far East as “ Rumes” (Arab. Rumi, a Greek); and Muslim opponents found in the East by the Portuguese thus included not only true Arabs, whether of Arabia, Africa, or India, generally known as “ Moors,” but large numbers of Turks and “ Rumes,” whose European experience and connexion greatly aided the Moors in their resistance to the European maritime invasion.
The course of trade in these seas was not exclusively from west to east and back again. From very early times a maritime commerce had been carried on in the reverse direction; and the meeting-place of the two trades was the port of Calicut. Hither came, once a year-for only during the summer were the Chinese seas navigable for Chinese vessels- a large trading fleet from the ports of China. The huge Chinese junks, with their fixed sails of matted reeds, never lowered, even in harbour, and mainly propelled by oars of immense length, and having on board gardens of growing vegetables, and large chambers for the ships’ officers and their families, so that each was as it were a floating town, were objects of curious interest to the Arabian sailors. The largest were reputed to carry a thousand persons, and each was attended by three smaller craft for the purpose of loading and unloading. It was natural for the Arabs, who had already secured a part of the Indian coasting trade, to push their way towards the Far East, and to claim a share in the trade of China and the Spice Islands. They found a convenient station in the port of Malacca, which in their hands quickly became the second great emporium of the Eastern trade. Nor did they rest here. Making their way to the ports of China itself, they were amicably received, and allowed to form settlements of their own. Many such settlements, each having its resident magistrate and Sheikh ul Islam, existed hard by the chief Chinese ports, and others were scattered through the Eastern Archipelago. Malacca became the western outpost of the Far-Eastern trade thus developed. Hither were brought the cloves of the Moluccas, the mace and nutmeg of Banda, the sandal wood of Timor, the camphire of Borneo, and many other spices, drugs, dyes, and perfumes from Java, Siam, China, and the Philippine Islands, all of which could be purchased here more cheaply of the resident Arab merchants than of those of Calicut, who obtained them in the ancient course of trade from the Chinese fleet. Hence the sailors of Africa and Arabia, at the arrival of the Portuguese, already resorted directly to Malacca for the produce of the Far East, and Calicut became chiefly a market for the cinnamon of Ceylon, and the ginger, pepper, and miscellaneous commodities of Malabar itself.
The ports of Arabia, and the Arab settlements in Eastern Africa, were the inlets through which the produce of India and the Far East were finally dispersed; and large quantities found their way through Suez, Jiddah, Mascat, and Hormuz, to the markets of Europe. It thus appears that the area of the Eastern trade naturally fell into two divisions, the mouth of the Persian Gulf marking the partition. Eastward of this lay the area of export, westward the area of import. Hence the fact that the Portuguese, having rounded Southern Africa, made straight for Calicut, the outpost of the exporting area. The ideas and expectations with which they approached this immense and unique field of enterprise were tinged with the arrogance of prolonged success. It was necessary, as a means to making themselves masters of the Eastern trade, before all else, not only to prove themselves masters of the Asiatic seas, but to be able to defy resistance on land, and to hold by military force whatever positions it might be desirable to occupy. For these purposes such demonstrations of force as had availed them on the African coast were insufficient. Society in the East rested everywhere on a military basis. The native Asiatic princes universally possessed numerous and not ill-equipped armies, though ill-supplied, or not at all, with firearms. By sea the Arabs and Rumes were more formidable. Wherever maritime trade exists it must defend itself against pirates; and piracy was rife on all the Indian and Chinese shores. Hence the larger vessels, both on the Malabar coast and on that of China, were usually manned with fighting men, and those of the Arabs and Rumes occasionally carried large guns. The Oriental fleets, if assembled in one place, would have immensely outnumbered the ships capable of being sent against them by Portugal. But in regard to construction, equipment, and the art of navigation the Portuguese had greatly the advantage. Even the Arabs knew nothing of the art of using a vessel mainly as a military machine. much less of manoeuvring and combined action for attack, defence, pursuit, and co-operation with troops on land. Eastern vessels, indeed, were scarcely capable of being so employed. The hard woods used in constructing them forbade the use of iron nails, and their heavy planks were rudely made fast with cocoa-nut cordage and wooden pins. Steering gear and ground-tackle were of a rudimentary sort: even a moderate gale rendered the ship scarcely manageable, and the guns were useless except at close quarters. The Portuguese, who inherited the naval experience of two thousand years, had become through their African voyages the best seamen in Europe, possessed ships of the newest type, and attacked the Arabian vessels with the confidence begotten of their maritime successes against the Barbary Moors.
The treachery experienced by Da Gama from the Zamorin of Calicut made it still more necessary for the Portuguese to be strong enough to punish, as well as to invade, the enemy; and when Pedro Alvarez Cabral sailed in 1500 in command of the second expedition to India his vessels were formidably armed with artillery. By way