_ 99 _ that everyone was astounded, both Moors and Christians were very much afraid of losing their reason. Master Francisco felt very worried about this because of the atrocious sins these people committed there. These tremors happened at a time when the native philosophers had been in disagreement over a long period. On one occasion, there was a tremor when I was about to preach. This sermon was followed by a great improvement, corresponding to the size of the quake. It seems that, the Lord wished to show me what I was to preach. It is reported that there was confusion a stone’s throw away in another very populous city, where at present great shoals of fish congregate. These tremors occurred about eight or nine times in two months. King Sharaf, who was imprisoned in Montemor(A), lives in this city. Here too is the Moors’ most magnificent mosque and prayer tower(B), one of the biggest that exists in the world. (A) He was Rå’îs Sharaf Nûr al-Din (called Reis Xarafo Nordin by the Portuguese) who was imprisoned in Portugal in 1529. Concerning him, see Schurhammer, Q, index p. 509. He was guazil (minister or governor), the king was, in fact, Turân Shah II. (B) Alcoran can mean a temple or tower. In the text the word is used as a tower: “A tower where the muezzins call the Moslems to prayer, a minaret” (Dalgado I 22). For a contemporary picture of an Ormuz minaret see Correia II 439.
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