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 De Cunna held so far to the south that he
discovered the islands still called by his name.
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