_ 200 _ regrouped with the exception of that of Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos, which was lost. The swell had thrown the ships of Afonso Lopes da Costa and Pero Afonso de Aguiar against each other. The latter, which was threatening to sink, was immediately assisted by a shallop equipped with reinforcements to bail it out. In spite of a rough sea, the water was pumped out in about forty-eight hours and the breaches filled with pieces of leather nailed over them and coated with pitch(A). On 25th July the fleet called in at Mozambique for a stay of five days. The sheikh of the city handed Lopo Soares a letter that Pero de Ataide had entrusted to him before he died, by means of which the commander-in-chief learned of the shipwreck of the Sodré brothers off the coast of Arabia(B). (A) Castanheda, I/90, p. 192. We know the names of the ship-wrecked captains from BM Anonymous, p. 117. (B) Vicente and Brás Sodré had been charged by Vasco da Gama with guarding the coasts of India during the year 1503. But rather than fulfil their mission, these two captains posted their ships at the mouth of the Red Sea in order to capture prizes. They were lost in a storm off the islands of Curia and Muria. Pero de Ataide, captain of the Sâo Paulo, which was part of the Sodré brothers' squadron, was found in the waters of Malabar by Francisco de Albuquerque at the end of August 1503. Charged with going ahead to Lisbon to bring Dom Manuel news of the truce concluded with Calicut, Pero de Ataide ran aground on the coast of Mozambique in February 1504 and died of an illness shortly after that date (cf. Pero de Ataide's letter to Dom Manuel from Mozambique, 20.11.1504, CA, II, p.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy