ABSTRACT
The supplies having been collected, the great Afonso Dalboquerque took his leave of the Moors, who kept to the agreement he had made with them, and started from the port on Sunday, the twenty-second of August, always keeping in sight of the coast, with the determination to leave no place in the whole of the land ignorant of what he could do to it; for he held it a most important part in his plan for getting possession of Ormuz, first to make himself master of all those places and ports which he might find along the coast, and to burn all their ships to prevent their assisting the king. And going along thus within sight of land, he told the Moorish pilots that he had a chart, made by a Moorish pilot named Omar, when he accompanied Vicente Sodré, and containing all the harbours, towns, and places of that coast, and in it was set down that five leagues from Calayate there was a port called Icce, and he desired they 68would point it out to him, thinking it was a large place. So the pilots showed it to him, and it proved to be a river of fresh water, in which the ships entering the Straits of Ormuz go and take water, and our fleet passed in sight of it; and when close to Curíate they anchored rather far from land, as it was all low rocks, and Afonso Dalboquerque ordered Manoel Telez and Antonio do Campo to approach as close as they could to the land, bearing in mind to make allowance for the low tide, for it was then on the turn; and when they were anchored, they set themselves in sailing order and hung out all their flags, remaining there all that night, without any one coming from land to speak with them. So when they had consulted together as to what they should do, although different opinions were advanced, it was agreed to destroy the place. But as it was large, not to proceed blindly to attack it, the great Afonso Dalboquerque made up his mind to go along with his captains and reconnoitre the place, and settle the manner in which they should disembark, and they entered the captains’ boats and steered for the river. “When they came close to it, the Moors, who lined the beach, would not have any communication with them, and began to make many hostile gestures; and they had made at that part a stockade of wood, five palms in breadth, and packed in with earth, which guarded all the front of the place, and within it were placed four large mortars, and many archers, and others with long lances, guarding it. And lower down than this, they had made another on the edge of the water in shape of a bastion, surrounded with wood, and packed up with earth, of the same size as the other, and at high water it was entirely surrounded by water; for between the fort and the village was a creek or backwater, in which there were two gates, one opposite to the other, for them to assemble whenever it was necessary. When Afonso Dalboquerque beheld the stockade, and saw that the Moors were unwilling to communicate 69with him, but were determined to make a bold stand in their own defence, he ordered the falconets which were in his boat to be fired at them, and retired to the ships. The Moors also, on their part, began to fire at him with their mortars, and with many arrows. And because in this harbour there is a small island, so close to the land that at low water one can pass over dryshod to the place, and the Moors could not prevent the disembarking of our people for all the force they had there, Afonso Dalboquerque ordered Antonio do Campo to go at once, that very night, with a hundred men, to take this island and fortify himself therein.
