_ 97 _ we attacked them. When they saw that we were making in their direction, they began to manoeuvre with their sterns facing land and one of them broke its tiller and was disabled before arriving ashore. Those in it got into the boat that they were towing astern, and made for land. Those of us who were nearest, immediately boarded the ship but found nothing there, apart from food and arms. The food consisted of coconuts and four jars of palm sugar loaves. Everything else was sand that was used as ballast. The other seven ran aground and we went in our boats to bombard them. The next morning, while at anchor, seven men approached us in a boat and told us that those ships were from Calicut and that they were searching for us. If they captured us they would kill us all. The following day, after we had left there, we went to anchor further on, at two bombards distance from where we had first been, on an island in which we were told there was water. The captain-major immediately sent Nicolau Coelho in an armed boat, to locate the watering place. On that island he found the ruins of a church with massive stonework, which had been demolished by the Moors, according to what the natives said, apart from the chapel, which had a straw roof. They offered their prayers to three black stones,
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