ABSTRACT
On his arrival at the ship, Afonso Dalboquerque ordered before him the Moor who had brought him the present, and this man was very terrified both at the destruction which he had beheld done to his city, and also at not knowing what would become of himself and the others. And when he had him before him he inquired of him what news there was from India, and what state Ormuz was in, and what men there were there, and if the king had ordered anything to be done to the fortress which he had left just commenced. The Moor told him that Cogeatar had received certain information that the Portuguese fleet had fought in Chaul 1 with Mirocen, Captain of the Sultan of Cairo, and Meliquiaz, Captain of Diu, had assisted the latter with all his fleet to take a ship, and that they had killed the chief captain of the fleet, and that Ormuz was in great want of provisions, for no rice nor corn had come into it from the interior for two years. He said, too, that the Rustazes had rebelled against the king, and gone away with all their people, because Cogeatar had put out the eyes of one of their principal captains who was called Naçaradin, and ordered another called Tajadin to be cast into the sea. And that the sons of Rexnordim, goazil of the city, were banished from the kingdom, and he (Cogeatar) had taken from sundry merchants their goods, and had imprisoned Almaça (a very favourite captain of his own) because he was implicated in a conspiracy for putting him to death on account of the destruction and death of the people which had taken place 223in the kingdom through his fault. And that he had made the Christians who had fled from the Portuguese turn Moors, and given them good marriages, and treated them very well for they had made him some very good metal cannons. And that in the fortress he had not done anything more than raise the principal tower and roof it over, and wall up the gate which led to the sea, and open another from the inner side of the terrace of the king’s palace. And that in the city there was a great want of water, for the ships which transported it had been all burned in the late war, and on this account Cogeatar had ordered Xarafadin, his servant, to overhaul all that coast, and bring him all the paraos he could find for the service of the city. And that Cogeatar had information that the captains, who had deserted the Portuguese before Ormuz, were at Cochim, and had been very favourably received by the viceroy, and that in his opinion if he went to Ormuz with that fleet, considering the great need the city was in, it could not hold out for more than two months before it would surrender.
