The Women Of Persia Are The Most
Beautiful In The World; Insomuch That Alexander The Great Used To Call
Them The _Golden-Eyed Women_.
In this year died the viceroy Alphonsus de
Albuquerque, who was succeeded by Lopez Suares.
In 1516, Fernando Perez de Andrada was commanded by the king of Portugal
to pass to the great kingdom of China and likewise to Bengala, with a
dispatch to John Coelo, who was the first Portuguese who drank of the
waters of the Ganges. In April 1517, Andrada took in a loading of pepper
at Cochin, as the principal merchandize for sale in China, for which
country he sailed with eight ships, four Portuguese and four Malayans. On
his arrival in China, finding he could not be allowed to land without an
embassy, he dispatched Thomas Perez, with instructions for that purpose,
from the city of Canton, where they came to anchor. The embassy travelled
400 leagues by land to the city of Pekin, where the king resided; for
China is the largest kingdom in the world. From Sailana in the south,
which is in 20 deg. N. it reaches to the latitude almost of 50 deg. N. which must
be 500 leagues in length, and it is said to be 300 leagues in breadth[28].
Fernando Perez was fourteen months in the isle of Veniaga, endeavouring
to acquire as much knowledge as he could of the country; and although one
Raphael Perestrello had formerly been there, in a junk belonging to some
merchants of Malacca, yet Perez certainly deserves the merit of this
discovery; as well because he acted by the command of the king his master,
as in discovering so much by land by means of Thomas Perez, and by sea
through George Mascarenhas, who sailed to the city of Foquiam, in 24 deg. N.
In the year 1517, in which Charles, afterwards emperor, came into Spain,
Francis Fernandes de Cordova, Christopher Morantes, and Lopez Ochoa,
armed three ships from Cuba, at their own expence, having also with them
a barque belonging to the governor Diego Velasques, with which they came
to land in Jucutan, in 20 deg. N. at a place which they called Punta de las
Duennas, which was the first place in which temples and houses of stone
and lime had been seen in the new world. The people here, who were better
clothed than in any other place, had crosses which they worshipped, and
set upon the tombs of their dead, whence it appeared as if they had
formerly been in the faith of Christ; and some suppose that this had been
the situation of the _seven cities_. In this expedition they were upon
the north coast of Jucutan, being the first discovery of New Spain, or
Mexico; and they returned thence to Cuba with some samples of gold, and
some prisoners.
In the year 1518[29], Lopez Suares commanded Don John de Silveira to go
and make peace with the Maldive islands, which he did accordingly.
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