_ 129 _ too, after so many centuries he called upon the Portuguese, the most westerly people in Iberia, in their ancient home. They would not only exercise their natural right of entering sterile Arabia, using the power of the sword to destroy its cities, burning its houses, capturing its women and children, making themselves masters of their property and territory. The very famous Persian people, so noble on account of the antiquity of their kingdom, arms and civilization who were to pay for this offence against Iberia by being converted to the religion of barbarous Arabs, were also to submit themselves to the power of our armadas in the victories we achieved over them in the conquest of the kingdom of Ormuz, which lies in both Arabia and Persia. In this second book we will recount these conquests which occur before the end of the year 1508 attempting to the best of our ability to avoid confusion concerning when these things took place. We will also do this so that the deeds of Afonso de Albuquerque, to whom we owe so great a kingdom as Ormuz, may be given a separate beginning, for he was the first to open up the way to this land of Arabia which he was instructed to conquer by order of the king, and especially to sail with that armada he took to the two straits to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, which were the gateways of the Moors to and from India.
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