Their treatment on board the vessel. Their reception at Diou. The
author applies to the viceroy for assistance, but without success; he is
sent to solicit in Europe.
Our condition here was not much better than that of the illustrious
captives whom we left behind. We were in an Arabian ship, with a crew of
pilgrims of Mecca, with whom it was a point of religion to insult us. We
were lodged upon the deck, exposed to all the injuries of the weather,
nor was there the meanest workman or sailor who did not either kick or
strike us. When we went first on board, I perceived a humour in my
finger, which I neglected at first, till it spread over my hand and
swelled up my arm, afflicting me with the most horrid torture. There was
neither surgeon nor medicines to be had, nor could I procure anything to
ease my pain but a little oil, with which I anointed my arm, and in time
found some relief. The weather was very bad, and the wind almost always
against us, and, to increase our perplexity, the whole crew, though
Moors, were in the greatest apprehension of meeting any of those vessels
which the Turks maintain in the strait of Babelmandel; the ground of
their fear was that the captain had neglected the last year to touch at
Moca, though he had promised. Thus we were in danger of falling into a
captivity perhaps more severe than that we had just escaped from. While
we were wholly engaged with these apprehensions, we discovered a Turkish
ship and galley were come upon us. It was almost calm--at least, there
was not wind enough to give us any prospect of escaping--so that when the
galley came up to us, we thought ourselves lost without remedy, and had
probably fallen into their hands had not a breeze sprung up just in the
instant of danger, which carried us down the channel between the mainland
and the isle of Babelmandel. I have already said that this passage is
difficult and dangerous, which, nevertheless, we passed in the night,
without knowing what course we held, and were transported at finding
ourselves next morning out of the Red Sea and half a league from
Babelmandel. The currents are here so violent that they carried us
against our will to Cape Guardafui, where we sent our boats ashore for
fresh water, which we began to be in great want of. The captain refused
to give us any when we desired some, and treated us with great insolence,
till, coming near the land, I spoke to him in a tone more lofty and
resolute than I had ever done, and gave him to understand that when he
touched at Diou he might have occasion for our interest. This had some
effect upon him, and procured us a greater degree of civility than we had
met with before.
At length after forty days' sailing we landed at Diou, where we were met
by the whole city, it being reported that the patriarch was one of our
number; for there was not a gentleman who was not impatient to have the
pleasure of beholding that good man, now made famous by his labours and
sufferings. It is not in my power to represent the different passions
they were affected with at seeing us pale, meagre, without clothes--in a
word, almost naked and almost dead with fatigue and ill-usage. They
could not behold us in that miserable condition without reflecting on the
hardships we had undergone, and our brethren then underwent, in Suaquem
and Abyssinia. Amidst their thanks to God for our deliverance, they
could not help lamenting the condition of the patriarch and the other
missionaries who were in chains, or, at least, in the hands of professed
enemies to our holy religion. All this did not hinder them from
testifying in the most obliging manner their joy for our deliverance, and
paying such honours as surprised the Moors, and made them repent in a
moment of the ill-treatment they had shown us on board. One who had
discovered somewhat more humanity than the rest thought himself
sufficiently honoured when I took him by the hand and presented him to
the chief officer of the custom house, who promised to do all the favours
that were in his power.
When we passed by in sight of the fort, they gave us three salutes with
their cannon, an honour only paid to generals. The chief men of the
city, who waited for us on the shore, accompanied us through a crowd of
people, whom curiosity had drawn from all parts of our college. Though
our place of residence at Diou is one of the most beautiful in all the
Indies, we stayed there only a few days, and as soon as we had recovered
our fatigues went on board the ships that were appointed to convoy the
northern fleet. I was in the admiral's. We arrived at Goa in some
vessels bound for Camberia: here we lost a good old Abyssin convert, a
man much valued in his order, and who was actually prior of his convent
when he left Abyssinia, choosing rather to forsake all for religion than
to leave the way of salvation, which God had so mercifully favoured him
with the knowledge of.
We continued our voyage, and almost without stopping sailed by Surate and
Damam, where the rector of the college came to see us, but so sea-sick
that the interview was without any satisfaction on either side. Then
landing at Bazaim we were received by our fathers with their accustomed
charity, and nothing was thought of but how to put the unpleasing
remembrance of our past labours out of our minds. Finding here an order
of the Father Provineta to forbid those who returned from the missions to
go any farther, it was thought necessary to send an agent to Goa with an
account of the revolutions that had happened in Abyssinia and of the
imprisonment of the patriarch. For this commission I was made choice of;
and, I know not by what hidden degree of Providence, almost all affairs,
whatever the success of them was, were transacted by me. All the coasts
were beset by Dutch cruisers, which made it difficult to sail without
running the hazard of being taken. I went therefore by land from Bazaim
to Tana, where we had another college, and from thence to our house of
Chaul. Here I hired a narrow light vessel, and, placing eighteen oars on
a side, went close by the shore from Chaul to Goa, almost eighty leagues.
We were often in danger of being taken, and particularly when we touched
at Dabal, where a cruiser blocked up one of the channels through which
ships usually sail; but our vessel requiring no great depth of water, and
the sea running high, we went through the little channel, and fortunately
escaped the cruiser. Though we were yet far from Goa, we expected to
arrive there on the next morning, and rowed forward with all the
diligence we could. The sea was calm and delightful, and our minds were
at ease, for we imagined ourselves past danger; but soon found we had
flattered ourselves too soon with security, for we came within sight of
several barks of Malabar, which had been hid behind a point of land which
we were going to double. Here we had been inevitably taken had not a man
called to us from the shore and informed us that among those
fishing-boats there, some crusiers would make us a prize. We rewarded
our kind informer for the service he had done us, and lay by till night
came to shelter us from our enemies. Then putting out our oars we landed
at Goa next morning about ten, and were received at our college. It
being there a festival day, each had something extraordinary allowed him;
the choicest part of our entertainments was two pilchers, which were
admired because they came from Portugal.
The quiet I began to enjoy did not make me lose the remembrance of my
brethren whom I had left languishing among the rocks of Abyssinia, or
groaning in the prisons of Suaquem, whom since I could not set at liberty
without the viceroy's assistance, I went to implore it, and did not fail
to make use of every motive which could have any influence.
I described in the most pathetic manner I could the miserable state to
which the Catholic religion was reduced in a country where it had lately
flourished so much by the labours of the Portuguese; I gave him in the
strongest terms a representation of all that we had suffered since the
death of Sultan Segued, how we had been driven out of Abyssinia, how many
times they had attempted to take away our lives, in what manner we had
been betrayed and given up to the Turks, the menaces we had been
terrified with, the insults we had endured; I laid before him the danger
the patriarch was in of being either impaled or flayed alive; the
cruelty, insolence and avarice of the Bassa of Suaquem, and the
persecution that the Catholics suffered in AEthiopia. I exhorted, I
implored him by everything I thought might move him, to make some attempt
for the preservation of those who had voluntarily sacrificed their lives
for the sake of God. I made it appear with how much ease the Turks might
be driven out of the Red Sea, and the Portuguese enjoy all the trade of
those countries. I informed him of the navigation of that sea, and the
situation of its ports; told him which it would be necessary to make
ourselves masters of first, that we might upon any unfortunate encounter
retreat to them. I cannot deny that some degree of resentment might
appear in my discourse; for, though revenge be prohibited to Christians,
I should not have been displeased to have had the Bassa of Suaquem and
his brother in my hands, that I might have reproached them with the ill-
treatment we had met with from them. This was the reason of my advising
to make the first attack upon Mazna, to drive the Turks from thence, to
build a citadel, and garrison it with Portuguese.
The viceroy listened with great attention to all I had to say, gave me a
long audience, and asked me many questions. He was well pleased with the
design of sending a fleet into that sea, and, to give a greater
reputation to the enterprise, proposed making his son commander-in-chief,
but could by no means be brought to think of fixing garrisons and
building fortresses there; all he intended was to plunder all they could,
and lay the towns in ashes.
I left no art of persuasion untried to convince him that such a
resolution would injure the interests of Christianity, that to enter the
Red Sea only to ravage the coasts would so enrage the Turks that they
would certainly massacre all the Christian captives, and for ever shut
the passage into Abyssinia, and hinder all communication with that
empire. It was my opinion that the Portuguese should first establish
themselves at Mazna, and that a hundred of them would be sufficient to
keep the fort that should be built. He made an offer of only fifty, and
proposed that we should collect those few Portuguese who were scattered
over Abyssinia. These measures I could not approve.
At length, when it appeared that the viceroy had neither forces nor
authority sufficient for this undertaking, it was agreed that I should go
immediately into Europe, and represent at Rome and Madrid the miserable
condition of the missions of Abyssinia. The viceroy promised that if I
could procure any assistance, he would command in person the fleet and
forces raised for the expedition, assuring that he thought he could not
employ his life better than in a war so holy, and of so great an
importance, to the propagation of the Catholic faith.
Encouraged by this discourse of the viceroy, I immediately prepared
myself for a voyage to Lisbon, not doubting to obtain upon the least
solicitation everything that was necessary to re-establish our mission.
Never had any man a voyage so troublesome as mine, or interrupted with
such variety of unhappy accidents; I was shipwrecked on the coast of
Natal, I was taken by the Hollanders, and it is not easy to mention the
danger which I was exposed to both by land and sea before I arrived at
Portugal.