_ 108 _ day there were another two boats with their guard, and in this way a great deal of stone was accumulated. The Captain-in-Chief made one Duarte Dinis factor of the work, with a clerk, to pay the labourers; and while the store was being gathered a lot of clay was mixed with which the foundations were to be begun and raised to the level of the ground. This clay is very strong, it is crushed and sieved and prepared with much labour. When everything was brought together the Captain-in-Chief went ashore with all the men in the fleet and called João de Frandes, a gunner, who was a good master of this kind of work, and showed him where he should lay the foundations of the keep, and they should be dug twenty feet wide because the keep was to be three storeys high, high enough to be able to see the whole city, higher the minaret, because if necessary heavy artillery would have to fire from the roof-top, and from all the other top floors. At each corner there was a tower twelve ells square on the first storey; so, the foundations were begun of that width, being six days into October in the year 1507. The Captain-in-Chief in person laid the first stone and put it at the corner of the entrance to the tower saying “In the name of Jesus Christ and of His Holy Mother, Our Lady of Victory, may She always help us against the enemies
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