_ 572 _ Now I will tell Your Highness again that the Governor left over sixty foists in this inlet a league outside the entrance to the Strait. They were scattered because the sea was rough and the wind strong, some were coasting along the bays and others sailing as best they could. This was a most disorganized fleet, and I can tell Your Highness that I have never seen anything like it since I have been in these parts. It was bad enough having no commander, but many of these foists were in a pitiful condition, they had no mariner or anyone who knew how to manage a boat, and in some of them there were mulattos as captains and oar-masters and in others seamen as oar-masters. When I saw this, I thought these were the worst conditions I had found myself in since I entered Your Highness's service. There were many sick men in the foists, and there was nothing to eat in any of them, nor seamen to sail them, for two thousand native seamen had died in the Strait. We did not have anchors because we had lost them in the Strait, and the season was winter. It pleased God to sustain us, and the virtue of Your Highness protected all of us there so that we were not wrecked. Foists are made for sailing on rivers or in calm seas, not for deep sea sailing in winter, certain however that mortality in the fleets that went to the Red Sea was very high.
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