to anchor in the port of Gale, where many Moors were taking in cinnamon and elephants for Cambaya.  To induce Lorenzo not to molest or destroy them, the Moors made him an offer of 400 bahars of cinnamon in the name of the king of Ceylon; and although he well knew this proceeded only from fear, he thought it better to dissemble and accept the present, contenting himself with the discovery of the island, on which he erected a cross with an inscription of the date of his discovery.  On his return to Cochin, he attacked the town of Biramjam or Brinjan, which he burnt to the ground and put all the inhabitants to the sword, in revenge for the slaughter of the factor and his people at Coulam, as this place belonged to that kingdom.

While Cide Barbudo and Pedro Quaresme were coming out from Portugal with two ships, they arrived after many misfortunes at Sofala, where they found Annaya and most of his men dead, and the rest of the Portuguese garrison sick.  Quaresme remained there to defend the fort; and Barbudo proceeding towards India found Quiloa in as bad a condition, of which he carried intelligence to Almeyda.  The viceroy sent immediately Nunno Vaz Pereyra to relieve the forts of Quiloa and Sofala[88].  But that of Quiloa was soon afterwards abandoned and destroyed, after having lost many lives, owing to the ill usage of the Portuguese to the natives, whom they treated with insufferable pride, and boundless avarice.

[Footnote 88:  De Faria does not give any dates to the particular transactions in his text, merely noticing the successive years in the titles of the various sections into which his work is loosely divided, and occasionally on the margin:  Even this has been neglected by the editor of Astley’s Collection.  These last transactions on the coast of Africa seem to have taken place towards the end of 1506.—­E.]

Having been informed by Diego Fernandez Pereyra that the island of Socotora near the mouth of the Red Sea was inhabited by Christians who were subject to the Moors, the king of Portugal ordered Tristan de Cunna and Alfonso de Albuquerque to direct their course to that island, and to endeavour to possess themselves of the fort, that the Portuguese ships might be enabled to winter at that island, and to secure the navigation of the Arabian Gulf against the Moors; for which purpose they carried out with them a wooden fort ready to put up.  De Cunna was destined to command the trading ships which were to return to Europe, and Albuquerque to cruise with a small squadron on the coast of Arabia against the Moors.  These two commanders sailed from Lisbon on the 6th of March 1507, with thirteen vessels in which were 1300 soldiers, some of whom died by the way, having been infected by the plague then raging in Lisbon; but when they came under the line, the sickness left them.  Having come in sight of Cape Augustine in Brasil, they took a new departure from thence to cross the Southern Atlantic for the Cape of Good Hope; but in this course