vessels, the greater part of the fleet refusing to join him.  He went first to Aden and thence to Diu, where he put himself under the protection of the king of Cambaya.  An account of these revolutions in the Turkish fleet, which had given great apprehensions to the Portuguese in India, was carried to King John by Antonio Tenreyro over land, to the great admiration of every one; being the first who had performed that journey, till then thought impossible.

At this time Mascarenas, who waited in Malacca for the proper season of sailing to Cochin to assume the government, went against Bintang with twenty-one ships and 400 Portuguese soldiers, having likewise 600 Malays commanded by Tuam Mahomet and Sinai rajah.  Although the capital of Bintang was well fortified and defended by 7000 men, Mascarenas surmounted every opposition and took the place.  Of the enemy 400 were slain and 2000 made prisoners.  A vast booty was made on this occasion, among which were nearly 300 pieces of cannon, and the Portuguese lost only three men in this glorious exploit.  The king of Bitang died of grief, and Mascarenas restored it to the lawful heir under vassalage to Portugal, the former king having been an usurper.

The island of Sunda is divided on the south from Java by a very narrow channel.  It produces pale gold with abundance of pepper and provisions.  The natives are numerous but unwarlike, yet are curious in adorning their arms.  They worship idols, and often sell their children to supply their necessities.  The women are beautiful, those of the higher ranks being chaste, contrary to what is usual in most parts of the world.  They have convents, as in Spain and Portugal, in which they reside while virgins; and the married women kill themselves on the death of their husbands.  This were a good custom to shew their duty and affection, were it not contrary to the law of nature, and therefore a barbarous error.  Enrique Leme happening to go there, drawn by the plenty and goodness of its pepper, he was well received by the king of Samiam, who offered ground for a fort, and to pay an yearly tribute of 351 quintals of pepper, to purchase the friendship and support of the Portuguese against the Moors, by whom he was much infested.  But when Francisco de Sa came to build the fort, he met with such opposition from the Moors that he was obliged to return to Malacca.

In the same year 1526, Martin Iniguez de Carchisano arrived in the port of Kamafo in Tidore with a Spanish ship, one of six which had been sent the year before from Spain to those parts which belonged of right to the Portuguese.  Don Garcia Enriquez, who then commanded at the Moluccas, on learning the arrival of these Spaniards, and finding that they occasioned the spice to rise in price, went in person to expel them, but was obliged to retire with considerable damage from the Spanish cannon; yet the Spanish ship afterwards sunk.  At this time Don George de Menezes, formerly mentioned as having lost his hand in the glorious