_ 235 _ belonging to foreign Moors should be kept in the fortress whilst they were negotiating. Often many of these Moors gathered together, but there was no need for vigilance. Though effort applied to the avoidance of evils may not shine so brightly as effort spent on remedying them, nevertheless prevention is always more praiseworthy in the person who governs, and the prior discussion which avoided these evils arising, than reliance on the good luck which may banish them. And the latter owes to good fortune what the former owes to his wisdom. Above all, the sagacity was remarkable with which this Captain prevents the great harm which famine could have inflicted upon that people, if he had not foreseen and solved the problem by persuasion and assiduity. For much earlier he had received warnings and intelligence from contacts he had all over that area that a great famine was effecting Persia, Arabia and part of Turkey. Perforce this was going to reach Ormuz and other neighbouring places. Long before, like another Joseph he began storing maize and whatever other provisions came into the city and the fortress. As the reason for this was kept secret, and in such cases each one judges the situation according to his own temperament, there was no lack of indignation among those very people whose situation he was trying to solve.
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