Five days after the departure of Lourenço Moreno for Baticalá, Simão Martinz arrived, whom Afonso Dalboquerque had sent to reconnoitre the ships which were coming out of the Straits (as I have already related), and with him he brought a ship which he had captured in the latitude of Monte de Deli, bound from Méca to Calicut, laden with much merchandise. And, among other captives who were taken in her, there were two Castilian Jews, who declared for certain news that the Rumes were not able to set out that year, because the Grand Sultan had been engaged in serious dissensions with the governors of Damascus and Alepo, and there was no time for him to make ready.

Afonso Dalboquerque inquired of them whether many ships had sailed from the Straits for India, and they informed him that they knew nothing of any other ships than that one of theirs, and one other which, was coming on behind, much more richly laden; for they had come by land to embark at the Island of Çuaquem, and there they had spoken with a Christian who was named Fernão Gomez, and with a Moor who was in his company,—and Fernão Gomez had declared to them that his other companion was dead; and from that point he and the Moor set out on the road to Cairo; but after the. lapse of a few days these returned again to Cuaquem; and because they could not agree respecting the road which they were to take, Fernao Gomez had separated himself from the Moor, and made his way to Juda,3 and the Moor had turned into the interior parts of Cuaquem, and thenceforth nothing more was known of them.