To the other causes of enmity that of religion was added, for, like the Spaniards, the Portuguese tried to combine the characters of merchants and missionaries, of pirates and crusaders.

When the first of Da Gama's sailors to land at Calicut was asked what he sought, his laconic answer, "Christians {443} and spices," had in it as much of truth as of epigrammatic neatness.
[Sidenote: Portuguese cruelty to Indians] Had the Portuguese but treated the Hindoos humanely they would have found in them allies against the Mohammedan traders, but all of them, not excepting their greatest statesman, Alphonso d'Albuquerque, pursued a policy of frightfulness.

When Da Gama met an Arab ship, after sacking it, he blew it up with gunpowder and left it to sink in flames while the women on board held up their babies with piteous cries to touch the heart of this knight of Christ and of mammon.

Without the least compunction Albuquerque tells in his commentaries how he burned the Indian villages, put part of their inhabitants to death and ordered the noses and ears of the survivors cut off.
[Sidenote: Trade] Nevertheless, the Portuguese got what they wanted, the wealthy trade of the East.

Albuquerque, failing to storm Calicut, seized Goa farther north and made it the chief emporium.