MOSQUES AND PAGODAS.

45

Then were deep furrows ploughed into the very soul of India. Her temples were prostrated, and their priests were circumcised. India cowered and shrunk before the religious hate of an anti-idolatrous government. Then was seen a new thing in her streets. The mosque of Muhammadan worship was built not far from the Hindu pagoda. While the bell of the temple was ringing for idolatrous rites, the voice of the crier from the turret of the mosque was heard. Whilst the names of heathen divinities were uttered by the lips of the Hindus in their pagodas, the Mussulmans were resounding in their mosques the names of Jewish patriarchs, and prophets; of Christ and Muhammad; and the institutes of the religion of Arabia transplanted themselves into a land which had hitherto been sacred to the religion of Brahma or of Buddh.

During several centuries did the Muhammadan power seek to establish itself. It at last succeeded. After several dynasties had in vain endeavoured to convert India into a Muhammadan empire, that purpose was accomplished by the Tartars or Moguls. The family of Timur became dominant over all factions. Baber and Akbar, the most illustrious representatives of that house, did all they could to consolidate their Muhammadan empire; till finally Aurungzebe, in the seventeenth century, held sway over India to its utmost confines. The throne established at Delhi became the paramount source of authority from Cashmere to Comorin.

Ere the star of the Muhammadan empire had reach

46

PORTUGUESE INVADERS.

ed its culminating point, another power-extremely dissimilar-appeared on the western coast of India. It came from the southern part of Europe, and professed a religious faith entirely opposite in its genius to that of the former conqueror.

Fifteen thousand miles of the unknown ocean were no impediment to the lust of gain and conquest which actuated the Portuguese towards the close of the fifteenth century. They bore in their hands the Papal commission, giving them political supremacy over the countries they might discover. Flushed with the conquests they had already effected, not only in the new world, which was then opened to Europe, but on the western coast of Africa itself, and animated by boundless hopes of large accessions to their empire from the Eastern Hemisphere, they rounded the promontory of South Africa, which they then first discovered, and European vessels appeared for the first time in the Indian Ocean. In the sixteenth century the natives of India beheld with astonishment the fair complexioned representatives of an unknown world land on their shores. The Muhammadans looked on them with fear and jealousy. The Hindus beheld an unclean race of people with superstitious detestation. All would have got rid of these western invaders; but the protracted struggle of more than two centuries was vain. The Portuguese valued the spices and the dyes, the jewels and the silks of India, too highly to allow of their quitting her newly-discovered shores. They were willing to murder thousands of resisting natives,

THEIR RISE AND FALL.

47

rather than lose the rich cargoes and full freights which the commerce of the country could supply.

commerce.

- More than this, Portugal aimed at the possession of an Indian empire, and armaments succeeded ships of From the Gulf of Cambay to Comorin their ships ruled the western coasts. Egyptian and Indian fleets, combined, sought to sweep them from the seas; but both were discomfited. The blood of Lusitanians, mingled with that of Egyptians, Africans, and Indians, coloured the waters of the Indian and Arabian seas. The Portuguese obtained victory after victory, and seemed for a while as though they would rule the destinies of India. They occupied cities, built fortifications, established influential embassies with the Mogul emperor and his viceroys, located extensive factories, took possession of important islands in the eastern seas, raised armies, established monasteries, built churches, organized colonies, employed large agencies for the proselytism of the people, and converted the natives—sometimes by violence, and sometimes by rich rewards. Their course was like the fiery track of a meteor. Lo! the meteor vanished. Other western powers appeared, one after another, and disputed Portugal's supremacy. They wrested from her what the natives were unable to recover. She had conciliated no power-had commended her rule to no people. This first European power became last. Ports were abandoned; garrisons withdrawn. Dominions were lost; fleets disappeared. Factories passed to other

India saw and wondered.

48

EUROPEAN INFLUENCE.

hands; commerce declined. Portugal ceased to influence India. Her possessions are now insignificant. Amongst the natives, her name is a by-word and a reproach. The traveller in Western India sees her very colonies abandoned, her forts dismantled, her monasteries in ruins, and the range of her proud fortifications occupied by beasts and birds. Inscriptions alone tell him, that more than two hundred years ago, the Portuguese power was supreme.

Another western power arose.

one,

It was a Protestant and assumed a milder aspect. Elated by its maritime power, it styled itself "The high and mighty States of Holland;" but it never gained any ascendancy, save in the Indian islands. It established- itself in Ceylon, and used strenuous efforts for the conversion of the Cingalese. This power has likewise passed

away.

France also sought to rule the East. At one time its counsels were potent in the movements of its princes, and its influence threatened to extend over a great part of India. This power likewise passed

away.

In one of the large cities of India at this day are to be witnessed, in the burial-grounds appropriated respectively to some of the above powers of Europe, significant memorials of their departed greatness. The governors of the factories of the several nations, and other influential men, now lie in the large mosquelike tombs, which were built for them in imitation of Muhammadan sepulchres.

BRITISH SUPREMACY.

49

The traveller beholds the spacious mausoleums hastening to decay-the names of their occupants almost erased the place overgrown with weeds; and sees an illustration of the rise and fall of the western powers, which once successively threatened to occupy the political rule of India.

Another western power was seen on the eastern seas, the only one that still survives. Her rise was the signal for others to decline. Britain was destined to come into contact with India,-not to influence, but to control,—to occupy not merely an eminent, but a commanding position. It bore no Papal commission; it had no ulterior ends, save those of trade. It sought the commodities of India. The British power came in the humble form of commerce. She has been enthroned as empress of India. She came trembling at the rival powers of Portugal and Holland; and fearing lest their hostile fleets should oppose her commercial career, and crush her rising navy. She has survived them; and her ships alone command the Indian and the China seas. She stooped, in the person of her ambassadors, low at the feet of the Mogul: she now occupies his throne. She asked for leave to build factories on a few acres of land: she now assesses the land of more than half a million of square miles.

The Muhammadan empire has been resolved into a thousand fragments. Those fragments have been scattered to the winds. Hindu principalities have become tributary, and act, or remain quiescent, as the British power dictates. Fallen princes feed at her

D