After dinner we started in our boats, in the hope of being able to make a few prisoners, whom we might exchange for the two Indian Christians whom they held captive and the negro who had deserted. With this object in view we chased an almadia, which belonged to the sharif and was laden with his chattels, and another in which were four negroes.[104] The latter was captured by Paulo da Gama, whilst the one laden with chattels was abandoned by the crew as soon as they reached the land. We took still another almadia which had likewise been abandoned. The negroes we took on board our ships. In the almadias we found fine cotton-stuffs, baskets made of palm-fronds, a glazed jar containing butter, glass phials with scented water, books of the Law, a box containing skeins of cotton, a cotton net, and many small baskets filled with millet. All these things, with the exception of the books, which were kept back to be shown to the king, were given by the captain-major to the sailors who were with him and with the other captains.
On Sunday [March 25] we took in water, and on Monday we proceeded in our armed boats to the village, when the inhabitants spoke to us from their houses, they daring no longer to venture on the beach. Having discharged a few bombards at them we rejoined our ships.
On Tuesday [March 27] we left the town and anchored close to the islets of São Jorge,[105] where we remained for three days, in the hope that God would grant us a favourable wind.
[Moçambique to Mombaça].
On Thursday, the 29th of March, we left these islets of S. Jorge, and as the wind was light, we only covered twenty-eight leagues up to the morning of Saturday, the 31st of the month.[106]
In the morning of that day we were once more abreast of the land of the Moors, from which powerful currents had previously carried us.[107]
On Sunday, April 1, we came to some islands close to the mainland. The first of these we called Ilha do Açoutado (“Island of the flogged-one”), because of the flogging inflicted upon our Moorish pilot, who had lied to the captain on Saturday night, by stating that these islands were the mainland. Native craft take their course between these islands and the mainland, where the water is four fathoms deep, but we kept outside of them. These islands are numerous, and we were unable to distinguish one from the other; they are inhabited.
On Monday [April 2] we sighted other islands five leagues off the shore.[108]
On Wednesday, the 4th of April, we made sail to the N.W., and before noon we sighted an extensive country, and two islands close to it, surrounded with shoals. And when we were near enough for the pilots to recognise these islands, they told us that we had left three leagues behind us an island[109] inhabited by Christians. We manœuvred all day in the hope of fetching this island, but in vain, for the wind was too strong for us. After this we thought it best to bear away for a city called Mombaça, reported to be four days ahead of us.
The above island was one of those which we had come to discover, for our pilots said that it was inhabited by Christians.