Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/13

 INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR The story of the preceding volumes was that of Mediaeval or Mohammedan India, the subject of this and the next volume comprises a new era in India's history the opening-up of Hindustan to the West. Alexander the Great had found one of the routes in the early ages, but no Europeans, except the occasional traveller, the persistent trader from Roman days, and the devoted Christian missionary, had traversed this or the other pathways to India from Alexander's day until the time of the Moghul Empire. The period of Mohammedan rule in India and the sway of the Ottoman power in the East had opened no new way for Occidental influence to enter Asia and had been prejudicial to any development of intercourse be- tween Europe and India; but with the changes that were ushered in by the sixteenth century, the quest for India by the sea route began, and India was brought within reach of the maritime nations of Europe as a rich prize to strive for. The Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and English vied with each other in bitter rivalry to gain control of commerce and to establish a