<[f. 330v/319v]> Chapter XVI On how, once the ships bound for the Strait of Mecca had sailed, we took another route to continue our journey, and how after many misfortunes they captured us

On seeing that all the ships on which we thought we could get {[f. 378v]} to Ethiopia had sailed and that it was no longer possible to further our mission by that route, we tried to find out whether there was any other way to continue the journey. We put great efforts into this and found a rich Armenian merchant who offered to take us by another route that he said was safer, albeit difficult and long, because we had to go to Basra and Aleppo, his own city, and from there to Babylon, making a detour round Great Cairo. We were not very worried about the hardships and dangers of such a long journey through lands of people who were so barbarous and such enemies of our holy faith; instead, the great desire that we had of finishing what we had started made us care little for the difficulties that they meant for us. With the counsel of some honourable Portuguese friends of ours, we made up our minds to go and embarked on a ship for Hormuz, a Portuguese fortress <[in the Strait of Basra]>, together with that merchant. Leaving Diu on 5th April 1588,¹ we spent forty-nine days on the voyage since we had a headwind on many of them; before we arrived, however, the ship put in at the fortress of Muscat, since it was very short of water and provisions. We found that the captain there was a Portuguese called Belchior Calaça, a man with experience of Indian affairs and a devout supporter of the Society, and we asked him in secret what he thought of the route we were taking. He answered that it was very difficult and dangerous, and that he had a Moorish pilot who used to go from there to the Strait of Mecca every year and, if he dared take us, it would be an easier undertaking. He said that as soon as the pilot came back from another land, where he was, he would discuss it with him and would write to us in Hormuz. After leaving there we arrived within a few days and, before disembarking, we found out from some Portuguese who knew the land where we could stay with a greater degree of secrecy, because we had to stay there for three months waiting for the wind for Basra. They said there was nowhere better for us to stay than in a monastery of Saint Augustine that there is there, and so, for that reason and because we would find it convenient to say Mass there, we wrote secretly to the father prior, telling him of our arrival and intention. As soon as night fell, <[f. 331/320]> he sent us a small boat and they led us through a false gate to the monastery that gave onto the sea, and they gave us a very charitable welcome; however, since the monastery was poor, the captain of the fortress gave what was necessary for our expenses on the king’s account.