_ 153 _ Chapter: 94 When this had been settled the Viceroy told Martin Coelho and Dom Antonio to come with him in their ships, together with Francisco de Tavora, whose ship had arrived, two days after Afonso de Albuquerque. He had brought a letter from Afonso de Noronha to the Viceroy, in which he said that he was very ill and greatly in need of provisions and asking him to come and rescue him and his men. The Viceroy would have wished to send him a ship with provisions at once, but Afonso de Albuquerque told him not to, because there were such dense fogs over the island during the whole of January that they wouldn’t be able to find it and until the fogs were over the men could live off the provisions which he had left there, consisting of dates and maize. Concerning this fortress (I think the author is referring to Socotra), Lourenco de Brito and Fernao Soares told the Viceroy that they thought it was of no use and that it had been a bad idea to post men on the island. They advised him to order it to be demolished, the Viceroy replied that although it seemed to him they were right he couldn’t do it because the king had not ordered him to do it, when he saw that Afonso de Albuquerque would stay in Cochin, and thinking that the reason why he had requested him to hand over the governorship
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