_ 175 _ I wrote a letter to the King this year(A), in which I asked him to accept this service from me, as I wanted very much to travel that land and reform the Portuguese there who were very successful in their temporal lives but completely ineffectual as regards the spiritual. So, I offered to catechize his people if he, who they say is totally obdurate in his errors, part heathen, part Mohammedan, part Jew, wished to accept this from me. I am hoping for his reply in a year from now, in the time it takes the ships of the fleet to sail from here to the Straits of Mecca. I wrote another letter to the Portuguese themselves(B) saying that I was hoping in Our Lord to receive permission from Your Reverence to go and visit them and spend the rest of my days there(C). This man told me, what he had heard in the land of Prester, that he would forthwith have me summoned from here in about a year's time. He would wait for me with mules and asses in the mountains of Ethiopia, which are next to Moca, a port at the entrance to the Red Sea, in front of Mount Sinai(D). (A) Doc. Edited by Beccari X 35-36. (B) See doc. edited by Beccari X 37-39. (C) See Ignatius’ answer in MI Epp. VI 88; see also Epp. Mixtae IV 108-9. (D) El–Maka in the Kingdom of Yemen, a town about 2,000 kilometers from Mount Sinai.
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