_ 574 _ Item: Ulrich Ehinger showed me a letter in which you send me greetings, for which I thank you a thousand times. You also wrote asking for me to give you recent news of India. Well, I know nothing in particular apart from what Ehinger writes to his master. All the same, as it appears that these will not reach you rapidly, this letter of mine is a step in the right direction although I have sent you two letters this year, one by Ehinger, the other by Calisto, together with the long letter from Nicolau, and if I am not mistaken I wrote to you also by Hieronymus Holtschuer. I understand that you did not receive it, which greatly annoyed me. Item: Dear friend, after your departure I wrote about what the Portuguese have done in India. In the first place Tristão da Cunha, the commander in chief, in the year 1506, conquered a fortress in the large island of Socotra and killed 85 pagans there. The King of Fartak, on the mainland of Arabia Felix built this fortress to subdue the people of the island and master it because the people of the island, as I understand, were formerly Christians, and there are still numerous signs of this. He conquered the island although it is of no great use, for all that comes from there are Socotra aloes; but there are also many foodstuffs, cows and sheep, cheese and butter and
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