_ 338 _ supplies, the king's treasure, a great deal of merchandise and all the arms. They stored everything in shelters that they made from foliage, and collected all the shrouds, tackle and everything else that might serve to build a boat in which they could sail. Although there were few shipwrights’ necessity which is ever the mother of invention, made all of them so skillful in that trade that they built a naveta so perfect and well-wrought, that the most skilled and experienced artificer could not have done it better. Having taken on board all the people, the king's treasure and all the goods it could hold, they departed at the end of March and arrived safe and sound in Cochin at the end of April. They brought news that on the island where they had been shipwrecked there was plenty of fish and an abundance of fresh water. In the same month of January [1556], the governor sent João Peixoto, a noble knight of great merit, with two galliots to the Strait to find out if Turkish galleys were being armed there, and to bring back Fr. Goncalo a member of the Society of Jesus, whom the viceroy had sent to Prester John the year before. Sailing with a fair wind, João Peixoto entered the mouth of the Strait in a few days, and he learned from some guelvas that he captured that there
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