_ 204 _ imported for the purppse, to hold water for Ormuz where water came from the mainland, which were praised by a great architect [Cairato](A), and a large number of quarters for the soldiers (49r-51v). He commissioned in Goa a life-size stone statue of Afonso de Albuquerque, painted in oil, with a stern expression, his right hand grasping his sword and his left holding up an armillary sphere, the emblem of the kings of Portugal. Matias placed the statue in the fortress of Ormuz (51v), with the famous words: “standing ill with the King for the sake of men standing ill with men for the sake of the King” (52r). When he became Viceroy he also ordered that the portraits of all his predecessors should be removed, and he took them all back with him to Portugal (53r). The Author then, with an objectivity rare in secular writers on India, dedicates a whole chapter to the great zeal of Matias in matters of religion (ff. 53v-60v). Matias was a patron of several churches in Ormuz, NS da Graca, NS da Pena and Casa de S João. His guard always accompanied the Holy Sacrament. He helped the work of conversion and treated converts well, and played a prominent part in the baptism of Bifatima, the wife of a son of the King of Ormuz and sister of the King’s wife. (A) J.B. Cairato, an architect of King Philip. Cf. G. von Mitter-Wallner, Chaul, Berlin, 1964, 237.
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