The Portuguese in the Sea of Oman

_ 93 _ Captain-General waited the whole of that day and night with great effort to see if it would turn up. Item: Sir, the following morning we departed on our voyage to the northwest, because that is the way to the Straits. We sailed all that day and night until we reached the islands of Sabaya. We had a fair wind all chat day and all that night. The next day, Sir, we encountered a reef. The wind was already north-northwest. It freed us from the channel and we dropped anchor. Summary of p. 410 Item: Sir, these Straits have three channels. A small one on the Jidda side only the uninitiated use. Some parts of the middle channel are 20 leagues wide, some 30. It has no bottom, though it does have some shallows. A crossbow shot from them there is no bottom. The third channel is on the Suakin side. Likewise none sail along it except those who know well. Item: We sailed through the middle channel, with a strong north-northwesterly wind and sea, for no other wind would allow us to advance. It was here that the “Flor da Rosa” was split open, but we saved the entire crew. We lost the “São Pedro”, which was towing the junk. The latter was split open and the rudder smashed, but Dom João and

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy