Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/150

 104 FIRST STRUGGLE FOR THE INDIAN SEAS lands of the Grand Turk sterile; the other to carry away from Mecca the bones of the abominable Mafoma [Mohammed], that, these being reduced publicly to ashes, the votaries of so foul a sect might be con- founded." Apart from such grandiose conceptions, his policy was an extremely practical one, and formed a strategic whole. It consisted of three series of operations. The first series was designed to intercept the Moslem trade at its base in the Nile and Euphrates valleys, by occu- pying the mouths of the Persian Grulf and the Red Sea. " For it was there," he explained, " that his Highness [the King of Portugal] considered we could cut down the commerce which the Moors of Cairo, of Mecca, and of Juda carry on with these parts." This he partially accomplished by building a strong fortress at Ormuz (1515), blockading and besieging Aden, and trying to incite the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia to attack Egypt from the south. How vague was his knowledge of that semi-fabulous realm of Prester John may be inferred from Albuquerque's repeated requests for miners skilled in rock-excavation from Madeira, to tunnel a passage for the Nile through the Abyssinian mountains to the Red Sea and thus destroy the irriga- tion of Egypt. Partial as was his success in cutting off the Mussulman trade of Asia from its Egyptian base, his operations combined with internal disputes among the Moslems to render the cry " the Rumes are com- ing " only a cry as long as he stood guard. The second series of Albuquerque's operations was