A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c16.s1.4

c16.s1.4

The next year, 1505, Almeida was appointed viceroy of the king of Portugal on the Indian coast, and took out with him a large fleet and 1500 soldiers. After some preliminary fighting at Honawar, Almeida began for the first time to perceive that the true interests of the Portuguese lay in peaceful commerce, and not in sanguinary and costly attacks on the natives; and he also learned from an influential native of the existence of the great kingdom of Vijayanagar and the power of its king, Narasimha (or Narasa). At Cannanore the viceroy's son, Lourenço, in 1506, received further information as to the state of the country from the Italian traveller Varthema, and in consequence of this Almeida asked King Narasa to allow him to erect a fortress at Bhatkal, but no answer was returned.