_ 559 _ God grant that Your Highness will be better served, and we shall do what the Portuguese have always done up to now and capture this when we go to Suez. The Governor left Suakin and we made our way to Massawa(A), where we found very bad news. Many men had died of hardship and hunger, and all the men in Massawa had rebelled(B), and one night a hundred or so of them had banded together and run through the streets saying that whoever wanted to go to the King of Abyssinia, who was a Christian, could join them. It is said that about one hundred and fifty people joined them, and they all went off together to an arbour where there was a crucifix. Mass was said, and before the cross they declared aloud that they were not rebels but were going to the aid of the King of Abyssinia who was a Christian but had lost his kingdom. They had also been seriously provoked by Manuel da Gama, who had already hanged five men(C) and often said that they would all be hanged; and they were also going (A) On 22 May (Roteiro, p.246). (B) See Gaspar Correia, Lendas IV, p. 178 ff. for a detailed account of this lamentable episode, when a hundred unfortunates, encouraged by the promises of the pseudo-patriarch D.João Bermudes, sought their death. (C) Correia, Lendas IV, p. 179. D.Manuel's letter confirms Correia's account.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy