_ 57 _ south, so the land forms a very large bay with a strait. According to the news we received, there are many Christian and Moorish towns in this bay, as well as a city called Cambay. Within it there are also six hundred known islands, the Red Sea and the House of Mecca. On the following Sunday we caught sight of the North Star, which we had not seen for a long time. On Friday 18 May, we saw high ground, after twenty-three days without seeing land. As we had always travelled with a following wind during that time, the least we could have covered in that crossing was six hundred leagues. At the time that we sighted it, we must have been eight leagues from land. We made a sounding there of forty-five fathoms. That same night we made our way south-southeast so as to distance ourselves from the coast. The next day, we made our way landwards but we were unable to get close enough for our pilot to be perfectly sure of the country. This was because of the heavy rain and thundery showers in this land during this voyage along the coast. On Sunday we were close to these mountains, which overlook the city of Calicut. We came so near them that the pilot we had brought recognised them and he told us that this was the country to which we had wanted to go. On the evening of that day, we went to anchor two leagues short of
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