_ 74 _ had revealed how evil he was so that all the world would know, he would pray to be saved. But because he was a very prominent and honoured man, his confessor would not allow this, only that he should enter silently and flagellate himself while clothed. This penitent was afraid that confession alone could not save him, but Our Lord consoled him, and he was ready for great penances. The second sin that I found here was the source of all the usury in the world; the usurers of Ormuz had a name in India for being masters who bind with a pernicious chain. It seems that those whom Our Lord cast out of the temple fled and made their habitation here. The subtleties of change and exchange and matters of usurious deceit were so great that they cost me much work to find them out, and still I do not know them all. In short, among the Moors, Christians, heathen and Jews there was no other way of life. There was a man here who had ten pardões to lend, on which he lived through the whole year keeping his capital intact, so that the ten brought him in a hundred every year. I arranged that every Sunday there should be teaching on the sin of avarice, as I had done in the cathedral in Goa.
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