_ 146 _ In 1582 Ormuz found itself faced with hunger. The King of Lar, who was eager to become more powerful than the King of Ormuz, an obedient vassal of the King of Portugal, [p.106] had entered the lands of Mogistan, from where Ormuz obtained its supplies, with the aim of making himself master of all that territory. As he had at his disposal a considerable army, he took the fortress of [Xamel] and others which belonged to the King of Ormuz, which made it necessary to send our forces to the aid of the latter. On 14th January 1582, the new Viceroy D. Francisco Mascarenhas, following instructions he had brought from the King, sent out a fleet of two galleons, a carrack and four galleots, whose commander-in-chief was D. Jerónimo de Mascarenhas, his nephew. His instructions were to post himself at Monte de Feliz to await the carracks from Malabar or Achin making for the Strait of Mecca to capture them. Once the monsoon was, over he was to winter in Ormuz in order to come to an agreement with the captain Goa, and after crossing that huge gulf, on the opposite coast, at the cape called Cape of the Pashas, they heard that the galleys had not gone to the south. So they went on to Mozambique; but as there was no news of the galleys and it was not necessary to winter in the fortress there, they set sail for India at the beginning of April. Barros, Década X, Book II Ch. V and X.
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