_ 511 _ In all these matters the captain showed himself to be Your Lordship's friend and servant. With evident pleasure and satisfaction, he greatly praised and extolled your considerable virtues and showed a strong desire and willingness to serve you. He was also sorry at not being able to serve and assist Your Lordship with his labours. This is the moment for you to receive good intentions through service and works, which by bad luck, a fair share of sorrow falls to my lot, not to find myself in a place where I should be able to serve you by such a great deed. May Your Lordship accept my good wishes, since the Lord God is satisfied with them, and in this matter may you be like Him since He made you in his own image and likeness and bestowed on you so many blessings and virtues. I wrote to Your Lordship everything that I was able to find out about the affairs of Basra. On the fifteenth of this month a servant of the King of Basra arrived in this city with a letter for the captain, in which the King asks him for help and assistance against the Turks who have come from Baghdad to attack him and have reached [Corna], which is a pass and location three days' journey from Basra. This place belongs to the King of Gezira and the Turks who are in Zekkia are to travel by river in boats to meet him in order to join the others who are coming by land.
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