_ 90 _ King of Shrine for some years, and when he died, the King of Shiraz came to the coast of Mughistan opposite Ormuz with ten thousand soldiers to lay siege to the fortress and subdue the land. This was when Martim Afonso de Melo was captain. But the king was driven out with great loss by a handful of Portuguese who performed heroic deeds worthy to be remembered forever. I leave this for the chronicles to whom the history of India is entrusted, continuing the Decãdas of João de Barros, who have often asked are for an account of the affairs of Ormuz. I have given them much material on those parts which until now have been hidden from all those who have written about it. Of the three blind kings whom João de Barros says were sent to Goa by Afonso de Albuquerque. During the eleven years I spent in Ormuz, often talking from time to time with the King, the Guazil, with grave Moors and learned princes, I saw all the chronicles and antiquities of Ormuz, and in none of them did I find any mention of the blind kings of whom João de Barros writes in his Decãdas, nor did I hear anything of a king, who was already a king, being blinded so that another might seize his kingdom.
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