_ 70 _ a very few days after my arrival I was instructed to embark immediately for Ormuz, where I am at the moment. Nor was I allowed to see my Father in Christ, Manoel de Morais(A), who had already arrived(B) and whom I so much wanted to see. I departed alone with no other company than that of God(C). You can imagine the fond remembrance that I carried in my soul for my most beloved Fathers and Brothers, whom I was leaving perhaps never to see again in this life. I embarked in nau with a nagoad(D), who through love of the Lord fed me throughout the entire voyage, because I took nothing for my sustenance on the journey. Every day I gave religious instruction to the slaves in the nau, because they wished to hear the Lord’s discourses (in his own time). (A) For Morais, known as the Elder. (B) Father Morais reached Cochin on 1st October (cf. Doc. 53, 5) from where he came to Goa at the beginning of December (cf. Doc. 54, 19). Father Rodrigues seems to have left Goa in the middle of the month of October (cf. below note 9). (C) That is, without a companion from the Society of Jesus, as was prescribed in the Rules of the members. The whole of the line was omitted lest it should be read aloud in the refectory of the College in Lisbon (cf. app. Crit.). (D) Nacoda (from the Persian language: nã-khudã, mastership): “Captain of the trading ship in the East” (Dalgado II 88; cf Yule-Burnell 612).
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