Cap. xxxii.—Of the multitude of locusts which are in the country, and of the damage they do, and how we made a procession, and the locusts died.
In these parts and in all the dominions of Prester John there is a very great plague of locusts which destroy the fresh crops in a fearful manner. Their multitude, which covers the earth and fills the air, is not to be believed; they darken the light of the sun. I say again that it is not a thing to be believed by any one who has not seen them. They are not general in all the kingdoms every year, for if they were so, the country would be a desert in consequence of the destruction they cause: but one year they are in one part, and another year in another; as if we said, speaking in Portugal and Spain, one year they are in the parts of Galicia, another in Entre Douro and Minho, in Traz os Montes, another year in Beira, another in Estremadura, another in Andalucia, another in Old Castile, and another in Aragon. Sometimes they are in two or three parts of these confines. Wherever they come the earth remains as though it had been set on fire. These locusts are like large grasshoppers, they are yellow in the wings; when they are on the way it is known a day before, not because the people see them, but because they see the sun yellow, and the earth yellow, that is, the shadow which they cast. Then the people are dismayed, saying we are lost because the Ambatas are coming, and this is their name among them. I will relate what I saw on three occasions. The first was in the town of Barua, we had then been three years in this country, and many times we had heard say, such a kingdom, such a country is destroyed by the Ambatas; while we were there, we saw this sign: the sun became yellow, and the shadow on the earth likewise, and the people were all dismayed. Next day, it was a thing not to be believed, for they spread over a width of eight leagues, according to what we learned later: and when this plague was close by, most of the priests of the town came to ask me to give them some remedy for it. I answered them that I did not know of any remedy, except to commend ourselves to God, and pray Him to drive the plague out of the country. Upon this, I went to the ambassador to tell him that it seemed to me well that we should make a procession with the people of the country, and that it might please the Lord to hear us. This seemed good to the ambassador, and next day in the morning we caused the people of the country to come together, and all the priests, and we took our altar stone, and those of the town theirs after their usage, and our cross and theirs, and singing our litany we went out from the church, all the Portuguese and the greater part of the townspeople. I told them not to go in silence, but to cry out like us, saying in their language, Zio marenos,[47] which means in our language, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon us. With this cry and litany we went through a plain of fields of wheat for the space of a third of a league to a small eminence, and there made an admonition which I had brought already written out that night with a requisition and admonition of excommunication[48] on it, that within three hours they should begin to set out on their way, and go to the sea, or to the country of the Moors, or to mountains of no profit to the Christians: and should they not do so, it called upon and invoked the birds of the air and the animals of the earth, and the stones and tempests to disperse and break and devour their bodies. For this, I commanded to catch a quantity of the locusts, and thus made this admonition to those present, in their names, and those of the absent ones, and ordered them to be let go in peace. It pleased the Lord to hear the sinners. When we were returning to the town, because their road was to the sea from whence they came, there were so many coming after us, that it seemed as though they would break our ribs and heads driving against us, such were the thumps they inflicted on us. When we arrived at the town, we found all the men, women, and children who had remained in it, placed on the top of the terraces of the houses, giving thanks to God for the manner in which the locusts went flying before us, and others coming after us. Meanwhile a great storm arose from the sea, which met them, confronting them with violent rain and hail, which lasted quite three hours. The river and streams swelled very much, and when they had ended running off, it was a wonderful thing that they measured two ells deep of their dead bodies, on the brink of the water of the great river, and likewise at the little brooks, a great multitude dead on the edges. The next day in the morning there was not a single one alive in the whole country. The people of the towns all round whence the locusts had arrived, hearing of this, came to see what had happened; some said: These Portuguese are holy, and by the power of God they have cast out the Ambatas. Others, and chiefly the priests and friars of the neighbourhood (not those of this town) said: Rather they are sorcerers, and by sorcery have cast out the Ambatas; and so they have no fear of the lions and other animals, on account of the sorceries they work. Sixteen days after this, there came to me a Xuum, that is, captain of a town, named Coiberia,[49] with men and priests and friars, to entreat us for the love of God to succour them, for they were all ruined by the Ambatas. This town is fully eight leagues and more from Barua towards the sea. They reached us at the hour of vespers. That same hour we set out, five Portuguese, and we travelled all night, and arrived an hour after sunrise. Already the people of the town were collected, and those of other towns around (in which also there were locusts), to beg us for the love of God to go there. This town is on a high hill, from which a great extent of country and many villages were in view, all yellow with locusts. The church is at the foot of the town; we went to it, and with our procession went to the town and took a turn round it, and in four directions and in four villages we made an admonition, having caught some locusts and letting them loose as we had done the other time. When the procession was ended, we went to eat, and having finished eating and gone out of the house, in all the country not a single one showed itself. The people of the country would not leave us alone, and insisted that by all means we should go to their villages, and they would give us whatever we wished for. It did not avail me to say that they were gone, and that it was not necessary. They persisted in importuning us to go and give them the blessing, as they were afraid of their returning. So the people went away in peace, and on the following day we returned to our resting-place. Here they began to affirm more strongly, that through devotion and prayer the locusts went away.
Cap. xxxiii.—Of the damage which we saw in another country caused by the locusts in two places.
Another time we saw the locusts in another country called Abrigima, whence the Prester ordered provisions to be given us, in the kingdom of Angote. This country is distant from Barua, from which place we were thirty days in travelling the journey. While we were in this country I went with the ambassador who came from Portugal, and five Genoese with us, towards a country named Aagao. We travelled five days through country entirely depopulated, and through maize canes as thick as canes for propping vines, it cannot be told how they were all cut and bitten, as if bitten by asses, all done by the locusts. The wheat, barley, and tafo, as though they had never been sown there, the trees without any leaves, and the tender twigs all eaten, there was no memory of grass of any sort, and if we had not been prepared with mules laden with barley and provisions for ourselves, we and the mules would have perished. This country was entirely covered with locusts without wings, and they said these were the seed of those which had been there and destroyed the country, and they said that as soon as they had wings they would at once go and seek their country. I am silent as to the multitude of these without wings, because it is not to be believed, and it is right that I should relate what more I saw in this country. I saw men, women, and children, seated horror-struck amongst these locusts. I asked them: Why do you remain there dying, why do you not kill these animals, and revenge yourselves for the damage which their parents did you, and at least the dead ones will do you no further harm. They answered that they had not the heart to resist the plague which God gave them for their sins. The people were going away from this country, and we found the roads full of men, women, and children, on foot, and some in their arms, with their little bundles on their heads, removing to a country where they might find provisions (it was a pitiful sight to see them). When we were in this lordship of Abrigima, in a town named Aquate, there came travelling thither such a multitude of locusts as cannot be told, and they began to arrive there one day about the hour of tierce, and till night they did not cease, and as they arrived they settled to rest. Next day, at the hour of prime, they began to depart, and at midday there was not one there; and not a leaf remained upon a tree. At that moment others began to arrive, and they remained like the others till next day at the same hour, and these did not leave any crop with a husk, nor a green blade. In this way they did for five days, one after the other; and the people said these were the children going in search of their fathers. They showed the way for the others who had not got wings. After these had passed we learned the width of the passage of these locusts, and saw the destruction they had caused. The breadth of this exceeded three leagues, in which there did not remain a husk or a tree, and the country did not looked burned, but much snowed with the whiteness of the sticks and dryness of the grass. God was pleased that the fruits had already been gathered in. We did not know whence they came, because they came from towards the sea of the kingdom of Dandali, which is of hostile Moors; neither did we learn where was the end of their journey.
Cap. xxxiv.—How we arrived at Temei, and the ambassador went in search of Tigrimahom, and sent to call us.
Let us return to our journey: two days after our arrival at this town of Temei, before our baggage arrived which had remained in Barra, the ambassador, Don Rodrigo, set out with six men riding, on his way to the Tigrimahom’s residence. He has the title of King of extensive countries, and has very great lords under his orders and rule. Don Rodrigo went to ask him to give us equipment for our journey, as soon as we should enter his lands. We remained in this town of Temei, Joam Escolar and I, and two other Portuguese: in this time the factor arrived with the baggage which had remained in Barra; and so we brought it all together in this town of Temei, where we had a very hospitable reception from the first Xuum of the district, who is a brother of the Barnagais. On the 28th July of the said year of 1520 there came a message to us from the ambassador, to go with the goods to where he was staying in the house of the Tigrimahom,[50] with the Portuguese who had accompanied him. We were still waiting two days for the people of the country to carry our goods, and then a Xuum arrived who gave us assistance (and this with heavy squalls, storms, and rains); we travelled the space of a league through plains, and then began to descend a very steep road and a very deep descent for the distance of another league, and we went to sleep within the circuit of a church from fear of the tigers, and much vexed by the storms. The following day we went through mountains, both rocky ridges and forests of trees without fruit, until we came to a very large river, which, as it was winter, we found very large for passing over: this is the river on which the town of Barua is situated, and it runs to the Nile, where[51] the kingdom of the Barnagais ends, and that of Tigrimahom begins. From where we slept to this river will be two leagues, a little more or less, and, notwithstanding the mountains and woods, all peopled.