_ 192 _ and money to buy what was necessary in Muscat, which was twenty leagues away, and then we left for Muscat. When we arrived there, people went in search of hens and cockerels, but could not find more than two dozen, because there were thirty or forty merchant vessels from India who had been told to wait there for the captain-in-chief. He made the ship in which we were travelling the flag-ship and ordered all the other vessels to come to Ormuz with us. 7. When Father António saw so many sick men he did not know what to do, and it was a fifteen days journey from there to Ormuz. He asked for a ship's boat, and he and I went aboard all the ships asking for whatever anyone would share with the sick, either for money or as alms, since only two dozen hens had been found ashore. The first ship we went to give us all the hens they had, and all the others which had any gave us some or all, so that we acquired about fifty. Then we left for Ormuz, and the Father confessed all the sick and cheered them, and gave them food night and day. 8. Also, dearest Father, when we arrived at Muscat, as I said above, Father António was told that there was a Portuguese woman who had been there for fourteen or fifteen years as concubine to a Portuguese, and that some priests who had arrived there had tried to persuade her to
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