of Egypt could provide. The Mameluke sultan had several Red Sea ports available (notably, Jeddah, recently expanded) where a fleet could be built. But, despite the entreaties of the Zamorin, the Venetian Republic, the Sultan of Gujarat and the overseas Arab merchant community, the Mameluke sultan had been slow to react to the Portuguese threat in the Indian Ocean. It was really only in 1503 or 1504, when his own treasury officers reported that the disruptive Portuguese activities were beginning to make a dent in the Mameluke treasury (dwindling revenues from customs dues on the spice trade and pilgrim traffic), that the Mameluke sultan was finally roused to action. Secret preparations began for the construction of a coalition fleet in the Red Sea ports, to drive the Portuguese out of the Indian Ocean. In September/October 1504 (or perhaps 1503?), the Mameluke sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri of Egypt dispatched an embassy to Rome, angrily demanding that the pope reign in the Portuguese, threatening to mete out the same treatment on Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land as the Portuguese had been handing Muslim pilgrims to Mecca. The sultan's complaint was forwarded to Lisbon by a worried Pope Julius II. But it only served to alert King Manuel I of Portugal that the sleeping Mameluke giant had been awakened, that something large was afoot, and that the Portuguese had better secure their position in the Indian Ocean before it was too late. The Portuguese position was indeed precarious – not only in India, but also in East Africa. The Portuguese had an old reliable ally in Malindi (Melinde), but the stages up to Malindi were weak. The powerful city-state of Kilwa (Quíloa), which dominated the East African coast, was inherently hostile to the Portuguese interlopers, but had thus far restrained her hand for fear of reprisals. (Kilwa had been forced to pay tribute by Vasco da Gama in 1502). But should a serious Muslim fleet challenge the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, Kilwa would likely take the opportunity for action. As putative overlord of the Swahili Coast, Kilwa could probably close down all the Portuguese staging points in East Africa, including the all-important Mozambique Island (the critical stop after the Cape crossing) and the attractive port of Sofala (the entrepot of the Monomatapa gold trade, which the Portuguese were trying to tap into). Mombasa (Mombaça) would only be too happy to overrun