The ship which first reached Cananor of those which loaded in Cochim, the captain of which was Tristan Vaz da Veiga, in which went the ambassadors Don Rodrigo de Lima and Licacanate, ambassador of the Prester, first took what was necessary in that fortress, namely, ginger, biscuit, arrak, fish, and she sailed on the 4th of January of 1527 for Portugal. The ship of which Antonio Galvam was captain, and in which I went on account of his friendship, arrived at port after the first which had already sailed, so they at once equipped us, and we sailed on the 18th of January for Portugal; and according to what they told us, the ship which had remained in the port of Cananor, taking in what it had to take sailed fifteen days after us, which was twenty-nine days after the departure of the first ship, which went out of port before us. Each ship made its course full speed as God might assist them, without first talking of waiting for one another. On the morning of the 2nd of April the look-out man of our ship, who slept in the top, began to say, “There is a ship a-head of us a distance of two leagues”. All those who still slept arose, and with those who were already up we placed ourselves in the castles to look with much amazement what ship it might be, because we were very far out in the middle of the sea. When it was clear day they knew that she was Portuguese, and one from India. Upon this the look-out man said he saw a ship astern of us. The ship which went in front having knowledge of us, as we had of her, began to wait until we approached and saluted her, and she us. Then the ship which came astern was well in sight, and the two ships agreed to wait for her, and towards night she reached us. There was much pleasure among the crews of the three ships, asking one another how they had fared, and asking the foremost ships if anything had happened to them, or how they had not sailed faster. They said, or we said, that we had sailed as much as we had been able, without anything happening to us by the way; and all in good health, God be praised. Here we went in convoy, and sailed together for three days. And because the ship named Sta. Maria do Espinheiro, Captain Antonio Galvam, in which I went, heeled over a great deal, and did not sail as fast as the others, one day early in the morning one of the ships was a long way off, and the other waited for us to speak us. When we reached her and saluted her, she said that the other ship which had gone a-head, and she, asked our pardon, but they could not wait for us, because they saw our ship heel so much that it seemed to them that we could not go to Portugal. We remained very disconsolate, and they went on their course. We made our course for the island of St. Helena to take in water there. The two ships which had left us fetched the said island, and we on Easter Sunday, which was the 21st of April 1527 ran by the island in the night which ended on Monday. And as at midnight, a little more or less, there came a heavy shower, some said that then we ran by the island, because the shower came from the land; others said that it was still a-head of us. We remained some days in this doubt, until we saw signs that we were beyond the island, and we ran very short of water; already we did not boil anything from want of water. Here the Lord succoured us with his mercy, giving us three days and three nights heavy rain, during which much good water was taken. They took thirty pipes of water for the ship, and for me they took three, and so also each one took what he wanted in whatever he had got, and we remained with abundance of water. From this time forward we made our usual meals. When we were near the island of Terceira we sighted a ship, and we feared much, thinking that she might be French. This ship fell off from the island to seaward, and we got as close in shore as we could; and then they sighted from our top a canoe[275] in which were men castaway, and they launched another canoe from our ship, which they had brought from India, and some seamen and shipboys went to it and took the canoe and nine persons that were in it, namely, five white men and four slaves, who were half dead; for the canoe had capsized with them because it is long and narrow and all of one piece of timber. They placed all these men thrown one upon another as they could not move, and had all been overflowed with water. On reaching the ship they seemed more dead than alive. They at once stripped them and put on them dry clothes, and some of them in beds, others by the fire, and some spoke three hours after that, others four hours, and others next day. Next day at dawn we made the port of the island Terceira, where we found caravels which were waiting for ships, and also alarmed at the ships which appeared at sea, thinking they were French, as they ran by the island, and were thinking of going to them. Upon this, the men whom we had picked up, and who were now somewhat in their senses and wits, said that those were the Portuguese ships which came from India and had separated from our company, and that they had sent them in the canoe to buy some fowls at an island where they were cheap, and the canoe had capsized with them, and they did not know what had become of the ships. After we had been five days at anchor in the port, the said two ships reached the port, and they told how they had run by so much that they could not make the island, and if it had not been on account of the king our sovereign, and fear of the French, they would have made their course for Portugal. They gave great thanks to God for saving their men and slaves, and also for our coming, swearing that they had left us for lost on account of our ship heeling so much, and they entreated us for the love of God to pardon them. They also told us that on Saturday, vigil of Easter, they made the island of St. Helena, and we told them that on the night of Easter Sunday, dawning on Monday, we had run by it with a shower. They also said that it rained there that night. We remained at Terceira eighteen days waiting for a carvel which was at the mine, and ships from the islands of St. Thomas and Cape Verde and from Brazil, for such was the regulation. The carvels that we waited for had to go together with the fleet that it might be secure from the French, and though this island is the mother of wheat it was very dear: and this was caused by its raining every day and not allowing of reaping, and still less carrying what was reaped. As soon as we reached this island they at once sent a carvel with a message and news of our arrival to the king our sovereign. When the ships that we were waiting for had assembled, we made our course for Lisbon, and one morning that we sighted Portugal and were not very far from land, we were still three days without being able to fetch the port, and with fear of running by it, and going to Gallicia. The Lord was pleased that on the 24th of July, which was the vigil of St. James, we entered the bar of Lisbon, and before we reached it, at Cascaes a carvel came out with a message from the king, saying, that His Highness ordered that those who came with the embassy of the Prester John were not to land in Lisbon, because it was prevented by the pestilence. In this carvel there came a servant of the king, who was to provide us with boats at Santarem, and pay expenses as far as Coimbra where His Highness was. This day we entered and anchored in front of the city of Lisbon, which gave us much pleasure.
Cap. v.—Of the journey we made from Lisbon to Coimbra, and how we remained at Çarnache.
As soon as we anchored in the Lisbon river, in front of the bulwark of the palace of the King our Sovereign, that day, the vigil of St. James, the king’s servant caused boats to come alongside to take us, all those belonging to the embassy, and convey us to Santarem, and also boats to take our goods with care to the India House. And because I and my nephew we had there a brother of his, also my nephew, who was representative of the monastery of Santos o Novo, which was outside in the parish of Sta. Maria dos Olivaes, he, learning our arrival, came on board, and we entrusted to him to keep for us some baggage which had not got to go to the India House, namely, bed clothes, both that on which we slept at sea, and also new and clean bedding, and dresses of silk, many new shirts, table napkins, head dresses, and all other small articles; and he collected it all within the enclosure of the monastery of Santos, of which he was the representative, in order to come next day with carts and take it all to his house. And we went on our road in the boats which had been assigned to us. On the following night that the said goods remained there, they took away all that was good and select, and left the old and worn, and even with that I and my nephew received a loss of more than fifty cruzados. We did not learn this till many days later, when they told me at Coimbra that a letter of excommunication had been published for my goods. We went this time in the boats to Santarem, and there the king’s servant provided us very good lodgings; he lodged me and the Prester’s ambassador in Alfange, and Don Rodrigo lodged in Marvila, in houses which had belonged to his father. We remained six days in this town, during which we dressed ourselves after the fashion of Portugal, and we bought mules and what we required because we came battered by the sea. One day we departed from Santarem at ten o’clock, in the greatest heat I ever saw, and in order to lodge separately, so we started in a straggling way, the king’s servant and I went together, and the Prester’s ambassador and the clerk of the embassy and his friars and servants in a party by themselves, and Don Rodrigo de Lima with his servants and slaves in another party. Don Rodrigo brought with him two Moorish pilots, who had been captured in the ships which Hector da Silveira took, as was said before in chapter III, who were sent to the King our Sovereign. And he dressed them in skin jackets, shirts, trousers, shoes, and caps, to present them to the king. The Prester’s ambassador, with his company, went in the narrow path half dead with heat. The king’s servant took me out of the town, and we went to stop at Ponte d’Almonda, where I expected my death from the heat. The Lord was pleased that I should find a lodging with much cold water, and a very good host, who when he saw me thus, began to encourage me and to give me cucumbers and cool wine, with which he cooled me and drew out the heat. Upon this, Don Rodrigo arrived galloping on a horse, shouting and saying, “For the sake of God let them run to me with beasts, for the Moorish pilots of the king and my slaves have remained half dead of heat.” There were there some muleteers, who at once went in haste with four beasts and Don Rodrigo with them, and they brought the said Moors and slaves, and they came in such a state that one of these Moors never returned to his senses. It did not profit him to anoint him with verjuice,[276] and many other remedies which they applied to him, he died at midnight; and the fever never left the other Moor until he died. We said with regard to this that they were suffocated with the clothes which they were not used to. We who were used to them passed a sufficiently bad time of it. After this the consequence was the suspicion that arose here whether we had entered Lisbon, and we all went to take oath, going before the king’s servant who conducted us, or ordered us to be brought. We gave our testimony that we were in good health and very sound, and from a very wholesome country: and that we had not entered Lisbon nor any other infected[277] country, but that we thought that these Moors, although they belonged to hot countries with great heats, had not the custom of going clothed, but wore only a cloth round them from the waist downwards, and above that their skins to the sun, and so it seemed to us they had been suffocated in their clothes. Several days later we learned that that day had been pestiferous, and that many people had died on it of heat; as for instance, a woman, an inhabitant of the monastery das Celas, in the olive gardens of Coimbra; coming from the Campo do Bollan, with other women, from washing her linen, she died of the heat at the entrance of the oliveyards, at a place named Fontoura. And a friar of Conception da Veiro, who was a native of Coimbra, going with another friar as was his custom from Botan, which is two leagues from Coimbra, to Penacova, which is four leagues from the same city, died close to a village which is named Gavinhos, of the heat, though he was a young man not more than twenty-four years old. The night that the first Moor died we went on to Golegan, which was a league from there, and thence further on from fear of the heat, and on account of the other Moor that we carried, who was sick, we travelled very little. From Golegan we went to sleep at Tomar, and from there to Alnayazare, and from there to Ansiam. Here the king’s servant separated from us and went to Coimbra; and we made our journey, and on arriving at Çarnache we found a message from the king, bidding us take up our quarters there, and remain there till His Highness sent for us. In our opinion, this was on account of what his servant told him of the Moor who had died with us: and in order to allay the suspicion and doubt about his death. We remained there twenty-eight days. When these were ended the King our Sovereign sent to call Don Rodrigo and me, and we went to kiss his hand, and give an account of those things as to which he questioned us; and he ordered, that two days after that day we should get ready to go all of us to the city.
Cap. vi.—How we departed from Çarnache on the way to Coimbra, and the reception that was made, and how the embassage was given, and of the welcome which the King our Sovereign gave us.
When we had now been thirty days in Çarnache, well provided with what we required by order of the king, through his servant who accompanied us, one day very early in the morning there came to us Diogo Lopez de Sequeira, chief officer of the household[278] of His Highness, and who when he was captain-major had taken us to the country of Prester John, and looked upon this embassy as a thing of his own, and done by his hand: he came to embrace the ambassador, and the Prester’s ambassador, and all of us separately, saying that the king had bid him come here, and that we were to eat heartily, and set out and go with him by the field road, because all the Court was coming to receive us. Diogo Lopez de Sequeira had ordered dinner to be prepared here, without our knowing of it. We all dined with him, and very early, except the Prester’s ambassador, who said he was not very well. Dinner over we got ready and set out. On reaching a place called d’Antanhol (which is a league from the city), we found there many people of the Court, who came there to meet us or receive us. From this place to San Martinho, which is half a league from the city, we found the roads full of all the Bishops and Counts and gentlemen that were at the Court. They conducted us by the quarter of Rapoula, and we entered by a street which is called Figueira velha, and thence by the gate of the monastery of Santa Cruz; and by another street named rua de Coruche, and by the road passing the gate of Almidina,[279] by the street das Fangas, the street of Sam Christovam, and by the Cathedral See, house of Our Lady, until we arrived at the palace of His Highness. The Marquis of Vilareal led the ambassador of Prester John by the hand until he kissed the hands of the King and Queen our Sovereigns, and of the Cardinal and the Princes, and all of us likewise kissed them. The king asked the ambassador how he had left Prester John his Sovereign, if he was in health, and likewise the Queen his wife, and his children. The ambassador answered, that all had remained in good health, and very desirous to learn and hear good news of His Highness, and of the Queen, and his brothers. The King our Sovereign said, that he received very great pleasure by this visitation and embassage, and he hoped that by it great service would be rendered to the Lord God, and to them as brothers much honour. His Highness, moreover, asked the ambassador how he had been by sea and land, and if he had been well provided for and welcomed since he had been in his dominions, fortresses, and ships, and also since he had come to his kingdoms. The ambassador replied, that the blessing of His Highness was so great, that whoever was comprised in it was in the grace of God. The king said to him that he had arrived tired, and that he should go in peace to his lodging, and all of us in company with him, and that we should rest ourselves; and His Highness would send to call us in order that we might give complete news of Prester John. Then we went away and mounted, and even many bishops and lords and gentlemen returned to accompany us, that is the Prester’s ambassador and all of us, as we had come, as far as the monastery of St. Dominic, where they gave him his quarters. Two days after that the Bishops and Dean of the Chapel and some chaplains came to seek the Prester’s ambassador and us who came with him, and we all went to the palace. The Prester’s ambassador presented to the King our Sovereign a crown of gold and silver, with the sides two palms high, and not very rich, which the Prester sent him; and two letters folded like books on parchment, each written in three languages, namely, Abyssinian, Arabic, and Portuguese, and two of each language, because they came thus in two little bags—they were made for Don Manuel, may he be in holy glory—and another little bag for the King our Sovereign. Licacanate, the ambassador of Prester John, then said to the king: “The King David, my Sovereign, sent this crown with these letters to the king your father, may he be in holy glory; and he sent to tell him that a crown never went from son to father, but that it comes from father to son, and that by the sign of this crown he, King David, was known, loved, feared, and obeyed in his kingdoms and lordships; and being a son he sent to the king his father this crown, in order that he might be assured that his kingdoms, lordships, and peoples were for whatever His Highness might command; and when he was certain that the king his father had died, he said, the crown and letters which he was sending to his father Don Manuel, are going to my brother the King Don Joan, with other letters which I will write to him”: and thus he presented to him the said crown and letters. And he gave all into the hands of His Highness. His Highness gave the crown and letters to Antonio Carneiro his secretary: and as His Highness was very gay and showed that he rejoiced much with this embassy, the said ambassador Licacanate and I presented to His Highness two little bags of brocade with letters inside, and a small cross of gold, which he sent to the Holy Father of Rome, telling His Highness how the Prester had ordered that these letters and cross should be delivered to His Highness, and should be given by the hand of His Highness to me, Francisco Alvarez, to take them to His Holiness. These His Highness took in his hands, letters and cross, and kissed them and gave them to his secretary Antonio Carneiro, saying, that he gave great thanks to the Lord that for the intercession of the King his sovereign and father such service was done to the Lord God; and that he trusted in the Lord to complete it very soon. He sent us away to our quarters very happy. And as up to this time we all ate as we travelled, the king ordered a regular maintenance and animals for riding to be given to the ambassador, namely, three mules, one for him, and two for two friars who came with him; and two cruzados each day for his table, that is, sixty cruzados a month, and one testoon every day for fodder for the mules; and a rich bed and bedding for him to sleep on, silver vessels for his table, napkins, and all that was necessary for him, and a steward, by name Francisco Piriz, to take charge of the silver, bed and tapestry, for he ordered everything to be given him. He also gave him one Francisco de Lemos, a gentleman of His Highness’s guard, as Arabic interpreter to speak for him, and to receive his maintenance, and do what might be necessary for him.
Cap. vii.—Of the translation of the letter which the Prester sent to Don Manuel.
“In the name of God the Father, as always was, in Whom we find no beginning. In the name of God the Son, one only, who is like Him without being seen: light of the stars, from the first before the foundations of the ocean sea were founded: who in former time was conceived in the womb of the Virgin without seed of man, or making of marriage: so was the knowledge of His office. In the name of the Paraclete, spirit of holiness, who knows all secrets, where He was first in the heights of heaven, which is sustained without props or supports, and extended the earth, without its being from the beginning, nor was it known nor created from the east to the west, and from the north to the south; neither is the first nor the second, but the Trinity joined together in one Creator of all things, for ever by one sole counsel and one word for ever and ever. Amen.