_ 569 _ Castro(A) because they are persons who serve Your Highness well here, and I think it is greatly in your interest to know these things. It was not enough for the Governor D. Estévão da Gama to have done these things I have recounted, but he left Massawa, where we were wintering, without taking advice or consulting anyone and against the wishes of the Moorish pilots he had with him, in the middle of the worst part of winter. He left on 10 July(B), although the Moorish pilots said that we would have good weather as far as Bab el-Mendab but that from them on it was winter and nobody, not even Moors, sailed at such a time. In Massawa before we left the Governor twice sent word to all the captains by the fleet purser, because we were about to embark in the galleons since there was no more to do there nor anywhere to go to fight and we were so tired from the labours of the Strait. He returned yet again to order us, in the name of Your Highness, that we were to go in the foists. (A) He returned in the carrack "São Tomé" - the "ship of the fidalgos”, so called because it was largely crewed by nobles. (B) On 10 July 1541, after sunrise (Roteiro, p.247). Couto (Década 5,p.510) says that D.Estévão sailed without waiting for settled weather in the hope of reaching Goa before the carracks from Portugal.
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