In 1529 Or 1530, Melchior De Sosa Tavarez Went From Ormus To Bassora, And
The Islands Of Gissara, With Some
Ships of war, and sailed up to where the
Euphrates and Tigris unite together, being the first of the Portuguese
Who
had sailed so far on the fresh water in these parts. Not long after this,
a Portuguese, named Ferdinando Coutinho, being at Ormus, determined to
return overland from thence to Portugal. For this purpose he went to
Arabia, and up the river Euphrates, for the space of a month, and saw many
countries and kingdoms that had not been before visited by the Portuguese.
He was made prisoner at Damascus; whence he crossed the province of Syria
to the city of Aleppo. He had been at the holy sepulchre in Jerusalem, in
the city of Cairo, and at Constantinople, where the Great Turk resides.
After seeing that Court, he passed over to Venice; and, from thence,
through Italy, France, and Spain, to Portugal, he came back to Lisbon.
This person, and Damiano de Goes, were the most adventurous of the
Portuguese, who, in our time, had seen and discovered the greatest extent
of foreign realms for their own satisfaction.
About the year 1530, Francis Pizarro, who has been already mentioned as
having gone to Spain to obtain the government of Peru, returned to Panama,
having procured all things as he wished, carrying with him four brothers,
Ferdinand, John, Gonsalvo, and Francis Martines de Alcantara[66]. They
were not well received by Diego de Almagro and his friends, because
Pizarro had not sufficiently represented his merits in the discovery of
Peru to the emperor, in which he had lost an eye, but took the whole merit
to himself. In the end, however, they agreed; and Almagro supplied Pizarro
with seven hundred pezoes of gold, providing him likewise with provisions
and ammunition, and other necessaries towards his intended expedition
against Peru. Soon after this arrangement with Almagro, Pizarro, and his
four brothers before-mentioned, set out with such soldiers and horses as
they could procure on their expedition. Being unable, from contrary winds,
to reach Tumbez, where he proposed to have landed, he was under the
necessity of disembarking at the river of Peru; whence he marched along
the coast with great difficulty, on account of many rivers and marshes, in
which some of his men were drowned in crossing. Coming to the town of
Coache, they found much gold and emeralds in that place; some of which
they broke, to see if they were perfect. From thence Pizarro sent twenty
thousand pezoes of gold to Almagro at Panama, to enable him to send
supplies of men, horses, ammunition, and provisions, and went from Coache
to the haven named _Porte Viejo_, where he was joined by Sebastian
Benalcazar, with all the supplies he had sent for. In the year 1531, after
the arrival of these reinforcements, Pizarro passed over from Porto Viejo
to the rich island of Puna, in the bay of Guayaquil, where he was
outwardly well received by the governor, who yet conspired to kill him and
his men; but Pizarro prevented him, and took many of the Indians, whom he
bound with chains of gold and silver.
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