_ 61 _ He said that he would send me from there all the information he gathered and I should give him some ciphers by which I would learn from him what they were planning to do. He would send this information by a son of his. This Hajji Fayat and his son area men who go every year to Aleppo and Damascus and Alexanderia and many other places, where they would of course learn a great deal of what the commands of the Grand Turk were. He told me that I should believe these things because he belonged to one sect and the Turks to another, and that he was friendly with the Turks because he could not help it, being a merchant who was always doing trade in those parts; and that the other Arabs who now live in Basra were in the same position. He also told me that Mohammed Pasha wished friendship only with me, and that they had been waiting for me to take possession of the fortress as I should be there for three years. Hajji Fayat begged me to keep secret all these things he had told me. In the time of Luis Falcão, Muhammed Pasha, Captain of Basra, gave orders for the capture of a place called [Lasaal], which is near Basra on the coast of Arabia, and he gave it to an Arab and made him King there.
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