_ 501 _ What is to be understood from this Jew’s statement and from his father’s letter, is that the Viceroy’s intention was to send him, so that if he arrived in as short time as the naus that left last March are expecting to take, he could notify India of what Your Highness wanted done concerning the storming of Basra. I once more maintain, with good reason, that it can be argued that this Jew does not know what he is talking about, and that the people in India are misled in this matter because they do not have proper information and intelligence of what is happening in Basra, because it is impossible to bring wood for thirteen galleys from Anatolia, or any other place, by sea to Tripoli, that does not require a great many vessels. It is also impossible to carry it on the backs of mules to Aleppo and Bira, which is where loading takes place on the Euphrates, without making a great deal of noise and commotion, and this must certainly be known by the merchants in Venice and our people in Cairo must know it from the trade between Tripoli Alexandria [sic]. Moreover, when this was announced and he was confronted with what Afonso da Gama had told the Viceroy, that this wood had gone to Tripoli in March 1560, because
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