While Nuno was at Madagascar, his own ship perished in a storm.  The men were saved in the other two ships, but much goods and arms were lost.  Sailing thence to Zanzibar, he landed 200 of his men who were sick, under the care of Alexius de Sousa Chichorro, with orders to go to Melinda when the people were recovered.  Being unable to continue his voyage to India, on account of the trade wind being adverse, he determined upon taking revenge upon the king of Mombaza, who infested those of Melinda and Zanzibar from hatred to the Portuguese.  If successful, he proposed to have raised Munho Mahomet to the throne, who was son to him who had received De Gama on his first voyage with so much kindness.  Mahomet however objected to this honour, saying, “That he was not deserving of the crown, being born of a Kafr slave:  But if Nuno wished to reward the friendship of his father, he might confer the crown on his brother Cide Bubac, a younger son of his father by a legitimate wife, and who was therefore of the royal blood of the kings of Quiloa.”  Nuno set off on this expedition with 800 men, accompanied by Mahomet and Bubac, each of whom had sixty followers.  On the way he was joined by the sheikh of Otonda, a neighbouring town, who offered to accompany him with a well appointed vessel.  This prince had silver chains on his legs, which he wore as a memorial of having been wrongfully imprisoned by the king of Mombaza, and had sworn never to take them off till revenged, having been so used merely because he had shewn friendship to the Portuguese.

Having been apprized of the intended attack, the king of Mombaza had provided for his defence, by planting cannons on a fort or bulwark at the mouth of the river, and brought 600 expert archers into the city.  Though opposed by a heavy cannonade from the bulwark, Nuno forced his way up the river and anchored in the evening close to the city, whence the archers shot continual flights of arrows into the ships, and were answered by the Portuguese cannon.  Next morning early the troops were landed under Pedro Vaz, brother to Nuno, who carried all before him, and planted the Portuguese colours, after killing many of the Moors and driving the rest from the city, without losing a single Portuguese soldier.  To secure and repeople the city, Nuno sent for a nephew of the king of Melinda, who came with 500 men, many of whom were of some rank; and these were followed by the prince of Montangue with 200 more.  Many likewise of the former inhabitants came in and submitted, so that the island began to reassume an appearance of prosperity.  The expelled king, sensible of the desperate situation of affairs, sent one of his principal men to propose an accommodation, offering to pay a ransom to preserve his city from destruction, and to become tributary.  An agreement was accordingly entered into to this effect, and the king began to make the stipulated payments; but finding sickness to prevail among the Portuguese of whom two