The Portuguese in the Sea of Oman

_ 11 _ place they come to. The King of Ormuz always keeps a large fleet here of the sort of craft they call terradas, which are large well-manned boats with sails and oars, with no guns but large numbers of archers with Turkish bows, and the King has about four hundred of these, with ten fighting men aboard each. When ships are running to Ormuz in the monsoon period, and also when they are running to India, they are guarded until they have passed this cape because otherwise the King would lose much of his revenues. No ship would dare come to Ormuz because on the coast beyond, opposite this cape, there are people called Nautaques, who are under the lordship of the King of the Resbuto, which has borders with Cambay. These Nautaques live along the coast are estuaries very dangerous to navigate. They go in light terradas, with sails and oars, and the oarsmen are all archers who carry their bows and arrows with them. They row but when the need arises, they let go the oars and stand up with their bows and shoot two or three arrows at a time which they hold between their fingers, and they are very dexterous and good shots. The arrows are three-edged, and when they lodge the shafts fall out. These Nautaques make agreements with the lords of the lands on which they live to give them a certain part of what they take, and so many join them from all over the country, and

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