We Met Here With
New Delays; The Fleet That Was To Transport Us Did Not Appear, The
Patriarch Lost All Patience, And His Zeal So Much Affected The
Commander At Diou, That He Undertook To Equip A Vessel For Us, And
Pushed The Work Forward With The Utmost Diligence.
At length, the
long-expected ships entered the port; we were overjoyed, we were
transported, and prepared to go on board.
Many persons at Diou,
seeing the vessels so well fitted out, desired leave to go this
voyage along with us, imagining they had an excellent opportunity of
acquiring both wealth and honour. We committed, however, one great
error in setting out, for having equipped our ships for
privateering, and taken no merchandise on board, we could not touch
at any of the ports of the Red Sea. The patriarch, impatient to be
gone, took leave in the most tender manner of the governor and his
other friends, recommended our voyage to the Blessed Virgin, and in
the field, before we went on shipboard, made a short exhortation, so
moving and pathetic, that it touched the hearts of all who heard it.
In the evening we went on board, and early the next morning being
the 3rd of April, 1625, we set sail.
After some days we discovered about noon the island Socotora, where
we proposed to touch. The sky was bright and the wind fair, nor had
we the least apprehension of the danger into which we were falling,
but with the utmost carelessness and jollity held on our course.
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