Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/187

 THE DECLINE OF GOA 139 they went out, and hired the services of a man to hold an umbrella over them as they strutted through the streets. " As Goa declined, its pride and poverty increased. Tavernier (1648) relates how once wealthy families were reduced to seeking alms, yet they did not put aside their vanity. The Portuguese matrons, like the Roman lady in Juvenal, went forth on their round of beggary in palanquins, attended by servants who deliv- ered their petitions to those whose charity they im- plored. I have dwelt on the interior life of Goa, for it rep- resented, on a more magnificent scale, the social types and standards of the other Portuguese settlements in India. The European force by which those settlements were maintained was a comparatively small one; prob- ably never exceeding eight thousand men; although I have failed to obtain conclusive evidence on this point. For the projected expedition against Diu in 1522, on which the Portuguese desired to concentrate their whole power, six thousand men were requested. In 1524 the king was bluntly told that " if your Highness had in India four thousand of such men as " a certain cap- tain, " they would perform greater feats than what is now done by the seven thousand or eight thousand who are walking about here." In 1535 the viceroy in Goa prepared to meet the great Turkish armament with seven thousand men and 120 ships. These numbers refer to supreme efforts of Portugal in the East, and they were only in part made up of Europeans. Albu-