_ 51 _ which had more than twenty shops on each side in which ready-cooked food was produced where through the doors could be seen pots and wide bowls of cooked rice, and whole roasted sheep and other kinds of food, all clean and perfect as could be, and in such abundance that, as I said, ten thousand men could eat. I saw a street in which merchants had pearls to sell, separated into different sorts and laid out on red cloth, which were worth over a hundred thousand cruzados. I saw other great things in the city of which I could write much because I saw it, but I will not do so because my intention is only to write about the deeds of the Portuguese. In all the island of Ormuz there is no drinking water, and it is all brought from the mainland, and from other islands near the mainland, in small boats. They buy so much that in every street there are houses which sell water at the door in jugs and earthen vessels, as they do along the river-bank in Lisbon. There are such great things in the city of Ormuz that it is rightly called the jewel in the ring. Our fleet came into sight of the city one day in the morning, but because there was little wind it took all day to get there, and we did not arrive until the sun had set. The Captain-in-Chief held a discussion with the Captains and told them to be prepared and agree plans because if the
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