Alpha Book

The bulk
of the people, however, maintained their ancient "Hindu" religion with
their social ranks or "castes" and preserved their distinctive speech
and customs. Over a country like India, broken up into many sections by
physical features, climate, industries, and language, the Mohammedan
conquerors,--the "Great Mogul" and his viceroys, called nawabs,
[Footnote: More popularly "nabobs."]--found it impossible to establish
more than a loose sovereignty, many of the native princes or "rajas"
still being allowed to rule with considerable independence, and the
millions of Hindus feeling little love or loyalty for their emperor. It
was this fatal weakness of the Great Mogul which enabled the European
traders, who in the seventeenth century besought his favor and
protection, to set themselves up in the eighteenth as his masters.
It will be remembered that after the voyage of Vasco da Gama the
Portuguese had monopolized the trade with India and the East until they
had been attacked by the Dutch toward the close of the sixteenth
century.


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