_ 205 _ of Calicut during the course of a war of ambushes whose episodes inspired the epic legend of Portugal and were celebrated by Camôes(A). If what was important had been saved by the tenacity of Duarte Pacheco, the position of the Portuguese in India remained precarious. In Cannanore, Gonçalo Gil Barbosa and his companions had been threatened with death(B). The Islamic communities of Malabar boasted of having obtained the alliance of the Sultan of Cairo who armed a squadron manned by his formidable Turkish or turkicised warriors who were called the Rumes and whose imminent arrival would destroy the Portuguese forces(C). Rumours of this spread through all the ports on the coast to such a point that António de Saldanha and Rui Lourenço, seeing the sails of Lopo Soares off Angedive, took them for the advance guard of the Mameluke fleet(D). The ambiguous attitude of the King of Cannanore, who (A) Lusiades, Canto X (National Edition, Lisbon, 1928, p. 327-329). (B) Castanheda, I/91, p. 193. (C) Barros, I/8-2, p. 305-308; Góis, I/93, p. 221-222; Correia, I/2, p. 495; Priuli, op.cit., p. 342 and 353. Cf. also the study by Ch. M. de Witte, Un projet portugais de reconquête de la Terre Sainte (1505-1507), in Actas do Congresso internacional de História dos Descobrimentos, V/1 (Lisbon, 1961), p. 419-448). (D) Castanheda, I/90, p. 193; Correia, I/2, p. 495.
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