ABSTRACT
It was on a Monday when we appeared in sight of our ship already run aground and of our companions, who were beginning to come to land. As we appeared at the top of a mountain, with the river separating us from them, the joy in all of us was great and equal on both sides of the river, as in companions who had experienced together so many sufferings and dangers, they having already given us up for dead, we who were to be most loyal to those who were about to come and for whom we made ourselves ready. We descended the mountain and while the baliio was being prepared to take us to the other side, we appeased our hunger with many mussels, with which the rocky parts of the shore were covered, and it was no small banquet for people who needed some remedy for hunger. I well know that, if it were in another place where there were greater abundance of food, that someone certainly would have persuaded us of the great harm that so much poor food would do to us, but there was no one who paid any attention to this or to whether they were well or badly cooked, each of us thinking that harm could come to us only from what we did not eat. When we had got to the other side of the river, we found a good place within sight of the sea, enclosed by trees at the side, where we decided, until we should have better counsel, to make our dwelling-place. Straw and branches served us for the huts which were soon constructed. 1 We next turned our attention to water and food, resolved until then to
travel by land back to Mo~ambique, waiting first to see what would happen to the carrack, from which we were beginning to remove some things, as it was continually opening up more and more. Water was what worried us most, because all we could discover there was a stagnant pool between some mountains, containing water that had run down from them during the time of rain, which, in addition to being stagnant and impure, served both us and the wild beasts of the forest not only as a drinking place but also as a place where they came to bathe. There is no doubt that it would have been very injurious to our health if we had continued to use it. Although we had found much good water at our first site, it was too far away, being almost a league's distance from where we were now, and for two hundred and fifty-two people, men, women, children, old people and youths, sick and healthy, for there were a great many in all these categories, it was a great inconvenience. We sustained ourselves for a few days with the water from the stagnant pool, and we were already feeling the effects of it when we discovered a fresh spring of very good water next to a rock, on seeing some rushes in that place. With this spring we were well supplied with water, although we turned our attention to food, and because God favoured us by preserving the balao for us, we began to use it to remove some food from the carrack, consisting of rice, biscuit, salted meat, salted fish, some wine, and sweetmeats. Because there was so much food carried on the ship, we could have removed enough to keep us free from distress for more than two years. 1 However, a lamentable lack of order in this matter resulted in there being brought to shore only eight hundred bales of rice,2 each containing approximately three alqueires. Experience has shown that the dissension and bad behaviour which prevail in situations such as this cause serious and unfortunate consequences when the distribution of these things is not handled by a person who is generally respected. They all agreed with the Captain to ask me to assume the responsibility of distributing the food to everyone. The Portuguese are certainly impatient by nature and even more so when galled by sufferings such as those in which they found themselves on this occasion, and they insult one another and anyone who deals with them. However, since I knew them well
and they loved and respected me and thought I could be of great help to them on this occasion, I accepted the work and received everything as it came ashore. As I say, it could have been a very great quantity if there had been more order and if, when the ship was still afloat but in danger of sinking, so many items of food as well as merchandise had not been so recklessly pillaged. I put everything together in one pile, paying no attention to names or marks on the items, whether they were those of the Captain or of common people, the pilot or other officers. And because greed, even in that wretched state in which we found ourselves, blinded the poor shipwrecked people so much that it made them forget the very things they needed most in order to stay alive, busying themselves in removing from the ship the clothing and merchandise which we would probably have to burn on the shore. Even if we were to be travelling through known territory inhabited by Christians, we should consider ourselves signally favoured by God if we were to escape with our lives. It was necessary, therefore, to make those who were rowing the baliio swear that they would bring me only rice, which they did for a whole day so that the bangafal, 1 as the storehouse of food was called, increased very much.
