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. At this place the ships
were parted in a storm, each following a separate course till they met
again at Mozambique. Alvaro Tellez, however, who commanded one of these
ships, overshot Mozambique and proceeded to Cape Guardafu, where he took
six ships belonging to the Moors, so laden with all kind of goods, that
he made a sort of bridge from them to his own vessel, consisting of
bales thrown into the sea, over which his men passed as on dry land.
During this part of the voyage likewise, Ruy Pereyra put into the port
of Matatama in the island of Madagascar; and being informed that this
island abounded in spice, especially ginger, Tristan de Cunna was
induced to go there, and anchored in a bay which his son Nunno named
Angra de Donna Maria, after a lady whom he courted. By others it is
named the bay of Santa Maria delta Conception. As some Negroes
appeared on the coast, De Cunna sent a Moor to converse with them; but
when he mentioned that the ships belonged to Christians, they
endeavoured to kill him, and had to be driven away by the Portuguese
cannon. About three leagues farther on, they came to a village, the
xeque or sheikh of which carried them to another town on an island in
a well sheltered bay into which the great river Lulangan discharges its
waters.
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