Page 21 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

all the boats in the harbour were burned, after which the victorious
fleet sailed along the coast taking several other ports, where the
people, if they did not surrender, were treated with similar
savagery. Muscat was held by the Portuguese for 144 years,
during which ‘only rare and feeble opposition told of deep resent­
ment of their intrusion and brutality’. After taking Muscat,
Albuquerque turned his attention to Hormuz, the key to the
Persian Gulf.
When the fleet readied Hormuz, they found that preparations
had been made to defend the island. The harbour was full of
ships containing fighting men, troops were drawn up on the shore,
foreign mercenaries had been called in to defend the island, and
Bahrain had sent a fleet with ‘relief of men and provisions’ but the
ships had been scattered by the Portuguese. But in spite of the
military array, although heavily outnumbered, the Portuguese
gained the day. The King of Hormuz agreed to pay tribute to
Portugal instead of to the Shah of Persia. D’Albuqucrquc was
unable to consolidate his conquest owing to dissension among his
captains and, when his fleet left, the Hormuzian King resumed his
allegiance to Persia, at the same time he adopted the faith of the
Shia sect of Islam to which the Shah of Persia belonged.
Seven years later, a strong Portuguese force regained possession
of Hormuz; this time, they firmly established themselves in the
island, and completed the building of a fortress which had been
begun when they first took the place. The fort was still standing
in good order at the beginning of the present century. For the
next 100 years Hormuz was the military and commercial centre
of the Portuguese in the Gulf.
In 1521 the Bahrain islands were taken by the Portuguese;
Bahrain was at this time a dependency of Hasa, whose ruler was
tributary to Hormuz. Because the Hasa ruler failed to pay his
tribute, the King of Hormuz asked the Portuguese to support him
in an expedition against Bahrain. The islands were taken by a
Portuguese and Hormuzian force and, after the fighting, the‘King’
of Bahrain died from wounds. His body was being conveyed
by ship to Hasa for burial when the Portuguese commander,
Antonio Correa, intercepted it. He cut off the head of the dead
man and carried it back to Hormuz in triumph, ‘to make an
agreeable present to the King of Hormuz’. A bilingual inscription
was set up in the city commemorating the bold exploit of Antonio
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