Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/268

 ▲ SOUTHERN INDIAN SWORD. CHAPTER VII FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS ON THE MADRAS COAST 1611 - 1658 THE problem which lay before the English on the east coast of India was a more complex one. The Moghul Empire had not yet reached those distant shores. Instead of the firm order which it imposed on its provinces, the conflict of dynasties and races still raged. The inland Moslem kings of Golkonda advanced their boundaries to the Madras coast after the destruc- tion of the Hindu suzerainty of Vijayanagar at the battle of Talikot in 1565. But the remnants of that ancient Hindu dynasty had sought refuge, and again gathered strength, in its eastern maritime provinces. There, backed by the shore rajas, its feudatories in more prosperous times, the descendants of the Hindu overlords still disputed with the Golkonda Moslems the hill tracts, the river deltas, and tidal lagoons. The Madras coast looked out toward the Eastern Archipelago as the Bombay coast looked out toward Africa and the Cape. The Portuguese, advancing east- wards from their African base, formed their first and 218