When our baggage came and was brought we began to see by experience the warning which was given us of thieves, because on the road they had taken by force from a servant who attended us, four tinned copper vessels, and other four of porcelain, and also other small kitchen articles, and because the servant had attempted to defend himself they had given him a great wound in one leg. The ambassador ordered him to be taken care of (of these pieces none appeared again). As soon as we were lodged the Prester John sent us three great white loaves, and many jars of mead and a cow. The messengers who brought this said that Prester John sent it, and that they would give us immediately fifty cows and as many jars of wine. The following Saturday, the 21st day, he sent us an infinite quantity of bread and wine, and many dainties of meat of various kinds, and very well arranged: and the same happened on Sunday, when, among many other dainties, he sent us a calf whole in bread, that is to say in a pie, so well dressed that we could not get tired of it. On Monday the friar came to us to say that if the ambassador would give all the pepper to the Prester John, that he would order food to be given to him and to his company, as far as Masua. And they ceased giving us food, neither did the fifty cows nor the jars of wine come. In the meantime they prohibited all the Franks who were in this country from speaking to any of us: and also they told us not to go out of our tent, that such was the custom of all those who come to this court, until they had had speech with the king not to go forth from their tents. We well knew later that such was their custom, and on account of this prohibition they kept prisoner a Portuguese, nicknamed the Sheep, who came to speak to us on the road, and one of the Franks, saying, that they came to tell us the things of the court. This Sheep ran away one night with his chains from the custody of a eunuch who guarded him, and came to our tent. Next morning they came to fetch him, but the ambassador would not give him up, but sent the factor and the interpreter to go and ask the Betudete from him, why he ordered Portuguese to be put in irons, and had them so ill-treated by slave eunuchs. The Betudete answered, saying: who had bid us come here, that Matheus had not been to Portugal by order of the Prester John, nor of Queen Helena; and that if the slave had cast irons on the Portuguese, that the Portuguese should in turn cast them on the slave, and that this was the justice of the country.
Cap. lxxi.—How the Prester moved away with his court, and how the friar told the ambassador to trade if he wished; and how the ambassador went to the court.
On Tuesday, 24th of October, while we were hoping that they would send to call us to speak to the Prester, he set out on a journey with his court to the place he had come from, which might be a distance of two leagues. The friar came, saying on his own part, that if he wished to go to where the King had changed his quarters, that we should buy mules on which to carry our goods; also telling the ambassador that if he wished to buy and sell that he might do so. The ambassador replied to him that they had not come to be merchants, but they came to serve God and the Kings, and to bring Christians together. Up to this time they had said that buying and selling was a very bad thing, and this they were doing to prove the intentions of our people. On the following Thursday the ambassador ordered me and Joam Gonzalvez, the interpreter, to go to the court and to speak to the Betudete and the Cabeata. We went and we told him those things which had been said by the friar to the ambassador, and the said friar went with us. We did not speak to the Cabeata, and we spoke to the Betudete in this manner. First we said that the friar had come to tell the ambassador to buy and sell, and that they gave him licence for that, and that the ambassador was much amazed at this, because neither he nor his father, nor his mother, nor ancestors bought or sold, nor had such a business; and the same was the case with the gentlemen and persons who came with him, and who had never been so accustomed: and that the ambassador and those that came with him were servants in the house and court of the King of Portugal, and that they served the Kings in honourable services and in wars, and not in merchandise; and besides the friar had told him to give all the pepper that remained to the Prester John, and that he would order food to be given him as long as we remained and until we reached the port of Masua, from which we had set out. And to this the ambassador said that it was not the custom of the Portuguese to eat and drink at the cost of the feeble and poor people, but to eat and drink, and pay with gold and silver: and because money was not current in these kingdoms, on that account the captain-major of the King of Portugal had given him, besides much gold and silver, much pepper and stuffs for their expenses, that of this pepper which he had brought for his expenditure he had already given four bales to the Prester, and the rest he kept for what has been said: and, besides, that the friar had told him that if he wished to come to the court he should buy mules for his baggage. With regard to this he sent to say that for the present he did not require mules, nor to move from where he now was, and that when he had to depart he would buy mules. To this the Betudete answered that the Prester had already ordered ten mules to be given, and had they not given them? We replied that we had not seen any such mules, only that this friar had given in the journey three tired mules to three men that came on foot. To the other matters he gave us no answer, but spoke of things that were irrelevant, as, for instance, whether the King of Portugal was married, and how many wives he had, and how many fortresses he had in India, with many other questions beside the purpose. We also told the Betudete, on the part of the ambassador, that if the Prester wished to listen to his embassage, that he should say so, and if he did not choose that to no other person would he give it; and that if he wished to have it in writing, that he would send it. To this he answered, that we should wait, and that we should soon have an answer. So we returned without any conclusion. Up to this time they had always forbidden the Franks who were about the court to speak to us, or to come to our tent; and if they came to see us, it was very secretly, and the friar was always by with us as a guard.
Cap. lxxii.—Of the Franks who are in the country of the Prester, and how they arrived here, and how they advised us to give the pepper and goods which we brought.
Because many times I mention Franks, I wish to say that when Lopo Soarez, captain-major and governor, went from India and came to Jiddah with a large fleet, in which I also was, there were in the said place of Jiddah sixty Christian men captives of the Turks. These Christians were of many nations. These who are at the court say that they were all waiting for the favour of God and the entry of the Portuguese into Jiddah to join with them; and, because the fleet of Lopo Soarez did not make the land, they remained there. A few days after that, sixteen of these white men, with as many other Abyssinians of this country of the Prester, who were also there prisoners, stole two brigantines, and fled to go in search of the said fleet. Not being able to fetch Camaran, they made Masua, which is close to Arquico, the country of the Prester. They landed at the said port and abandoned the brigantines, and went to the court of the Prester, where they were doing them great honour, more than to us up to the present time, and they had given them lands, and vassals who provide them with food. These are the Franks, and most men of these nationalities are Genoese, two Catalans, one of Scios,[147] another a Basque, another a German; all these say that they have already been in Portugal, and they speak Portuguese and Castilian very well. They call us also Franks, and all other white people, that is to say, Syrians, which is Chaldea and Jerusalem; and the people of Cairo they call Gabetes.[148] On Sunday, the 29th of October, there came to us two of the said Franks, saying that they came in consequence of an agreement amongst themselves with respect to what they had heard say about us, namely, that the people of the court said that the pepper and all the goods that we brought belonged to the Prester John, and that the captain-major had sent it to him, and that since we would not give it him, so we should not find favour with him: and they were of opinion that it would be well to give this pepper that we had brought and all the other goods, because otherwise we should not have leave to return, because this was their custom, never to allow any one to return who came to their kingdoms: and that they would sooner have pieces and stuffs than cities or kingdoms: and that this was their opinion. Upon this we held council, and, with the opinion of the ambassador and of ourselves, we all agreed to give to the Prester four out of the five bales of pepper that we still had, and to keep one for our expenses. We also decided to send him four chests covered with hide,[149] which were among the company, in which came clothes, and this because we thought that he would be pleased with them, and that we should obtain favour. Then, on Monday, the 30th of October, the Franks came to us very early with many mules and men-servants of theirs to carry our baggage. The ambassador, with all of us, determined to send the said present of pepper and chests, and that I, with the clerk and factor, should convey it, and that the ambassador, with the other people, should go later in the afternoon. We set out with the said pepper and chests, and going along the road we met a messenger, who said he was bringing us the words of the Prester; and he dismounted to give them to us, and we dismounted to receive them, because such is their custom to give the King’s words on foot, and for them to be heard on foot. He told us that the Prester John ordered that we should come at once to the camp. We said that the ambassador was coming presently after us, and that he should return with us in order to give us the means of being able to present a service which we were conveying to his highness. He said he would do so, and moreover asked what we would give him for himself; because this is their custom always to beg. We contented him with words, with the intention of giving him nothing. He conducted us before a great enclosure of a high hedge, within which were many tents pitched, and a large long house of one storey thatched with straw, in which they said the Prester sometimes remained, and this man said that he was there. Before the entrance of this hedge there were a very great many people, and these likewise said that the Prester was there. We dismounted a space further off (according to their custom) and thence we sent to say that we wished to present a service to his highness. There came to us an honourable man saying, almost with ill-humour, how was it the ambassador had not come. We answered him that it was because he had not got mules or people to carry his goods, and that now he would come because the Franks had gone for him. We asked this man to tell us how we could present this pepper and chests to his highness; he told us not to take care for anything, that anyhow the ambassador should come, and when he had come and when he was summoned he would take the present. This man then ordered us to be shown where our tent should be pitched when he came, and the ambassador delayed very little.
Cap. lxxiii.—How they told the ambassador that the grandees of the court were counselling the Prester not to let him return, and how he ordered him to change his tent, and asked for a cross, and how he sent to summon the ambassador.
This day we learned that the Prester was not within this hedge enclosure, and that he was not in the tents nor in the houses that were there, and that he was higher up in other tents which could be seen from there on a hill, and which was about half a league from these tents. We did not see or hear anything more this day; we only pitched our tent in the place which they had assigned to us, which was not very far from the hedge enclosure on the right hand side. The Franks who were at the court came to our tent, and they told us that the grandees of the court were opposed to us, and that the friar was putting it into their heads to counsel the Prester not to allow us to return, nor to go out of his kingdoms, because we spoke ill of the country, and that we should speak more evil of it if we went out of it: and that it had always been the custom of this kingdom not to allow foreigners who came to it to go away. We had suspicions of this from what we had heard, and what these had told us; and from what we knew already of Joam Gomez and Joane, a Portuguese priest, who had come here, sent by Tristan de Acunha, in the company of a Moor, who is still alive, and dwells in Manadeley. And they did not suffer these Portuguese to depart, because they said it would cause their death if they went away. And so one Pero de Covilhan, also a Portuguese, who went away from Portugal forty years ago, by order of the King, Don Joam, may he be in holy glory, and he has been in this country for thirty and odd years. There is also a Venetian whom they call Macoreo in this country, and who says his name is Nicolas Brancaliam; it is thirty-three years since he came to this country. Also one Thomas Gradani, who has been here fifteen years, without any of them being allowed to go away. These go about the court, and there were others who died, without being allowed to depart. They say, for their excuse, that whoever comes to seek us, has need of us, and it is not in reason that they should go away, nor that we should let them go. We did not now find this Pero de Covilham at court, and they tell us that he is in his house close to the rocky gates which we passed. On Tuesday, the last day of October, the Prester John came from the tents above, where he was staying, to the enclosure tents and house where we were. When he passed he saw our tent standing not very far from his, and he at once sent a man to the ambassador to tell him to order his tent to be moved, as the place where it was sickly. We were on the spot which they had assigned to us the day before. The ambassador said in answer, that he had not got anyone to shift his tent or his baggage, and that people should come to shift it to wherever his highness commanded. This day, in the evening, there came a message from the Prester asking whether the ambassador had, or whether any of his suite had, a gold or silver cross, to send it to him to see it. The ambassador said that he had not got one, neither was there one in his company, and that one he wore he had given to the Barnegais; and with this the page went away. He returned immediately saying that we should send any we had got. We sent one of mine of wood, with a crucifix painted on it,(or perhaps, “a painted crucifix on it”) which I always carried in my hand on the road, after the custom of the country. He sent it back at once saying that he rejoiced much that we were Christians. The ambassador then ordered word to be sent to Prester John by the page who brought back the cross, that he still had for the expenses of himself and his company a little pepper, and that he wished to give it to his highness, and also four chests for keeping clothes, and that when he sent they could take to him this pepper and the chests. Then the page went with this message, and returned at once, saying that the King did not want the pepper nor the chests, and that he had already given the cloths which they had presented to him to the churches, and most of the pepper to the poor, and also that he had been told that the captain-major of India had given to the churches all the stuffs which the King of Portugal had sent for him. The ambassador answered that whoever had told him such a tale had not told him the truth, that all the things were still together, and that the servants of Matheus must have told that story that the cloths were given to the churches. And because I knew all that had happened with regard to the cloths which the King of Portugal sent to his highness, I answered: That it was true that in order that these cloths which the King had sent should not be damaged, and also to serve God and honour the churches, I had assisted to hang them up in the principal church of Cochym, which is that of Holy Cross, on the principal feast days; and that when the feasts were ended, I had helped to take them down, fold them and put them by, and this had been done to serve God and honour the feasts, and also that the cloths might not be injured and eaten by moths: and on this account they might have told him that they had been given away to the churches, but such was not the truth. When this answer had gone, another messenger arrived to say that the Prester ordered that the ambassador should come there at once with all his company and people (this might be about three hours after sunset). We all began quickly to dress ourselves in our good clothes to go whither we were summoned. When we were dressed, another message came that we were not to go: so we all remained like the peacock when he makes a wheel and is gay, and when he looks at his feet[150] becomes sad: as pleased as we were at going, so sad were we at remaining.