_ 88 _ Here, they had told the Governor that it was not much more than a corral and hardly a fortress. Simao da Cunha positioned himself and his artillery and began to fire, but, at the height of the battle, he ran out of so much gunpowder that he had to send here to ask me for more. By the time I sent him help, most of his men had fallen sick, so that the next day, there was scarcely anyone to collect up the artillery to take it to the ships, nor enough of these anyway, so that it was again necessary to send terradas from here as well as men to sail the ships. Of the 450 or 460 people who had gone, there was not a living person who had not fallen sick. More than two hundred men died in this enterprise and many more are on the point of doing so. Simao da Cunha is dead and so is Francisco de Mendonca, many other noblemen died of the fever. I believe that of the remaining men, if one hundred escape death, God will have affected a very great miracle. I trust that Your Highness will have had information about the city and fortress here from Manuel de Macedo. As I have already written to you, after Manuel de Macedo left, Khwaja Ibrahim was taken prisoner, as well as many other men in this city. The Governor says that the King of Ormuz requested him to capture them but, as I have already written to Your Highness, the King says that the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy