Whilst we Portuguese and the Franks were in the town of Barua waiting for them to come to us, and having sent two men to the sea in order that they should bring us the good news that our Portuguese were coming for us, on Saturday, vigil of Easter day, the 1st of April of 1526, the said two men whom we had sent to the sea reached us, and they came half dead and despairing, and they began to say, there are no Portuguese there, who were coming for us, nor are there in India, for all are routed and India lost; and they said that they knew this news by the Moors of three ships which had arrived at the Island of Masua with much sounding of music and festivity, and very rich merchandize, and that with much festivity they had disembarked at the said island. These Moors gave this news because such was their wish, and they founded themselves in asserting it on the capture of a Portuguese galley close to Diu, a port of the King of Cambay. These Portuguese who brought this news came half dead and fainting, and we remained in like manner with this news so bad for us. The ambassador, Don Rodrigo, said to me: “Padre, let us say mass to-morrow very early, and commend ourselves to God.” I answered him that my heart was not quiet, nor in such rest as to be able to say mass, but that we would go very early to the chief church and hear mass with the Barnagais. And so we did, and when the morning became light, and the mass of the resurrection was finished, the Barnagais invited us to come and dine with him, and we excused ourselves on account of the feast day, and that each of us wished to honour his own quarters: and we did this by reason of the small pleasure we felt. I went with eight Portuguese and Genoese that I had invited to dinner, and when we had done eating I left them in the house with my nephew who always accompanied me, and I went alone up a stream as far as a great rock which made shade on the sand of the river, and I wept by the way, and with tears and sighs I laid myself down in that shade for more than an hour; and, desisting from weeping, I recovered myself, and talking to myself I said: “Now this comes from God, and He is served by me in this land: the Lord be praised for ever since it is so. I know this country better than any native of it does, because I go in pursuit of game, and know its mountains, and waters, and the land which is good for cultivation, and which will give all that is planted or sown in it. I have got some good slaves and fourteen cows, and I have got rams which I will exchange for ewes. I will go near to some water, and will have a strong bush fence made to keep off the wild beasts, and I will pitch my tent in which to take refuge with my servants, and I will arrange a hermitage within, and each day I will say mass, and commend myself to God, since the Lord is pleased that I should be here. I will order the bushes to be cut to make gardens, and I will sow grain of all sorts: and with my harvests and hunting I will maintain myself and servants and slaves.” With this I remained consoled, as though good news had come to me; and I arose and returned down stream to my house, where I found the ambassador Don Rodrigo and the Portuguese and Genoese, and all our company, playing and enjoying themselves. As soon as I approached them, Don Rodrigo said to me: “Padre, what shall we do? my opinion is that we write to the Court to our friends to say to Prester John that he should bid us return to the Court.” I answered him: “Do not do it, and I shall never come from it if I go there.” And when he said to me, “What shall we do if the Prester orders us to go?” I answered, “If His Highness sends to say that the Portuguese should come, and does not say let Padre Francisco come, as he always says, I shall not go: and if he names me I will go, even though I should regret it.” And when he asked what I would do if I did not go, I gave him an account how I had gone after dinner up stream as far as the said shade and had lain down; and of the thoughts I had had, and the determination I had taken, and that I had come away consoled. All that were there arose and embraced me except the ambassador, who did not agree to this; and all of them said, and each one separately: “This is a thing which comes from God, and we will all go with you, and we will bring our wives and sons and slaves; we have got very good mules, and we very well know the sea and the land markets, and some of us will remain with you, and others will go and trade, and we will enrich ourselves, and we will make a place of our own in which we will breed cattle, and we will make large tilled fields.” When the ambassador heard this he answered nothing, and said: “You, Padre, have got much game and good things to eat, let us all sup here if you bid us, and to-morrow we will also dine here with you, and after dinner we will go with your snares after game, and we will go and sup at my house.” This pleased me very much, and we all supped this Easter and dined on Monday. After that, we rode out to hunt, and killed many hares and three or four ...,[264] and went to sup at the house of the ambassador. All the Portuguese and white men of other nations being very firm in the agreement before come to through me, when it was already night, after supper, and all of us going home to our quarters, and all with me to conduct me to mine, there came up to us on the road a servant of mine named Abetay, a married man of the country. And he came running so fast that he could not speak from fatigue: and he began to say: “Sir, Sir, the Portuguese on the sea.” I asked him: “Abetay, who told you this?” he replied, “A man said it who has now arrived from the sea and is with the Barnagais.” I said to him: “Abetay, if this is true, of nine mules that I have got, five mine and four of my nephew’s, excepting the one the Prester gave me, on which you cannot ride, I will give you the best, and I will not sleep until I see this man.” Then I took leave of my companions and went to the gates of the Barnagais’ palace, and they would not open them to me; and I waited at the gate with the said man until the cocks crew, and the man came out, to whom I at once said: “Are you the man who saw the Portuguese on the sea?” He replied: “I did not see them with my eyes, but I heard with my ears, in the morning of Easter, firing of cannon at Dalaqua, and I bring this message from the Sultan[265] of Arquiquo to the Barnagais.” I made my calculations, as it was not new moon, for at sight of it the Moors make great rejoicing, who could these be who were firing, whether they could be Rumys, Moors, or Christians. I gave this news to all our company who came to me for it on the Tuesday morning to ask, as they knew that I had gone to seek the man who had come from the sea. As I said before, that the Prester’s ambassador had sent after us two of his men for them to bring him in great haste any news of the Portuguese that we might hear, in that hour we despatched one to him, and he was one of his men, and another of this country to go night and day and take this message to the ambassador, so that he might make ready, we having some hope of good, for we had no other contrariety, except that two men of ours had brought the news from the sea that India was lost, and they could not believe in the coming of the Portuguese; on the contrary, they said this firing of bombards was rejoicing of the Moors, on being certified of the injury to India. This Tuesday, in the night, while we were thus neither believing nor disbelieving either the good or the bad news, there reached us a letter from Hector da Silveira, captain-major of the Indian sea, who had come for us, and remained in Masua. Here I do not know what to say of how great was the pleasure of all of us, except that we went out of our senses, so great was the joy. Don Rodrigo, the ambassador, returning to us said that we should start, and at once, next morning; some said that that was good. I said that it did not seem to me good; because, up to this time we had been held to be Christians, and if we travelled on such great feast days, they would say that we were not so, and that we should keep the octaves until Monday. Then that night we despatched a Portuguese, and a man of the sea coast, with our letter to Hector da Silveira; and to the Prester’s ambassador we sent his man who was still with us, with another man of the country, and they were to travel day and night and take him this certain news, and the ambassador was to do the same, and travel day and night by some other shorter road along the sea on the way to Arquiquo.

On Monday after the octaves of Easter, the 9th of April, we set out from Barua, the Barnagais and we Portuguese, and the other three white men who were with us, on the road to Arquiquo. The Barnagais and his gentlemen and two that he sent for may have taken with them a thousand men on mules, and a large number on foot. This day we went to sleep at a distance of two leagues from Barua, at a place called Dinguil, encamped in a plain in which every Monday at night, and Tuesday in the morning, people assemble who are going to the fair of Arquiquo, and they go together in a caravan, because this road is not travelled over except by a great assemblage, from fear of the Arabs and wild beasts. Here there joined us fully two thousand persons who were going to the said fair, and they said that there were few people, and that they had failed to come from fear of want of water. With the people who came with the Barnagais and those who came from this place, Dinguil, we set out and went to sleep at the place of scanty water. And in the distance that there may be from Barua, whence we started with the Barnagais, to Arquiquo, of fourteen leagues or fifteen at most, we passed all the week till Saturday morning, and we took up our quarters close to the town of Arquiquo, not approaching our ships because the Barnagais had to present us, and his people were not yet assembled, because besides the people who came with him from Barua, he was expecting men and captains who were to go against Suaquem, which is towards Egypt. These men did not arrive till the Monday following. At night, and we at liberty, we went to see our people, and they us. On account of the heats, which were great and insupportable, the Barnagais and captains ordered dwellings to be made of wood and tall bushes, and they also ordered dwellings to be made for us Portuguese to sleep in, covered with sails above, as there was no man could endure the heat of the country from the great multitude of people and the suffocation of tents and huts. The Portuguese who came for us had made their dwellings over the sea where there was always a breeze; others lodged in good terraced houses, which were in the island. On Tuesday, in the morning, the Barnagais and his captains and me with him, he conducted us to where Hector da Silveira was, and delivered us up to him with much pleasure and joy. He ordered fifty cows and many sheep, fowls, and fish to be given him for the ships. On the Thursday following, Prester John’s ambassador reached us, he had travelled day and night, and as soon as the first message which we sent was given him he ordered mules to be put in readiness, in order that if a positive message came, he might travel day and night, which he did as soon as the message was given him. We Portuguese went to wait for him at the town of Arquiquo, to come with him, and the Barnagais also came to deliver him up. While we were thus waiting for the monsoon, that is, wind for departure, which always comes from the 26th and 27th of April till the 3rd or 4th of May, and if one does not go out with this monsoon there is no other till the end of August; on the 21st of April there reached us four calacems, that is, four messengers from Prester John to say that he had news by Zeila of the Portuguese fleet having entered the Red Sea, and that they thought they came for us; and since it was a long time that we had left his Court, and we might be sad, that we should at once return to him, and he would give us much gold and clothes, and would send us joyful and contented to the King of Portugal his brother. These calacems said that they had been sent in such haste that in each town they had taken fresh mules from the captains, and had travelled night and day, and they requested us very earnestly not to do anything else there except turn back: and they required the same of Alicacanate, the Prester’s ambassador, to return with us, and we with him: they moreover requested Hector da Silveira to send us because Prester John would feel displeasure at our going away vexed. Hector da Silveira answered, and we with him, to the said calacems, that by no means could we turn back, nor could he wait, nor did the monsoon allow of it, and that if we did not go away now at once, other ships would never come for us, and that his ambassador might return if he liked. This was told to the ambassador of Prester John, and he replied that by no means would he return without us, because he would order him to be thrown to the lions. So we all remained with great pleasure; and the calacems discontented because their labour had been in vain.

LAUS DEO.