Page 61 - Journal of Asian History_Neat

“3
72 SAl.ilt OZn.VKAN !

man much esteemed and known amongst the Portuguese. I am
sending Your Lordship, with this [letter], the translation of the letter
which he [i.c. the beylerbey] wrote to me. I had conversation with this
Hajji Fayat on several occasions, in the course of which he said to mo
that I should give full credence to the things that he told me. He was
willing to swear on his Koran [mogafo] that everything which he told
me was indeed true. I asked him whether ho was willing to swear that
/•
his actions were in good faith4 and I ordered him to give a gTeat oath
*
■:
through Garcia della Pinha, the interpreter of this fortress [of Hor­
muz]. In this oath he affirmed that the main reason for his coming . r
j
hero was to be a true friend of the Portuguese. And [he related] all the s
•y
things that he knew about Ayas Pasha, [stating] that he is the principal •j
cajnldo [i.e., beylerbey] in Baghdad and that it was he who came to 3
take Basra. He also [spoke about] Mehraed Pasha who is capitdo of .1
Basra, and, in addition, he gave me information about all the other 3
3
regions. He was aware of the resolve of Ayas Pasha to make Basra
very prosperous through commerce, s6 that it might yield a large V i
revenue to the Great Turk-also that Rustem Pasha, the grand vizier ■l
(gucizil) and son-in-law of the Great Turk, regarded as detrimental
this capture of Basra, saying that it was worth nothing at all, a
ruined place. Over these matters the two men were opposed to one
another-and even at an earlier time had ceased to be friends. Ayas
Pasha therefore strove very much to make Basra important, so that it
might give a great revenue to the Great Turk. And over these and
other matters he works as hard as he can.
I asked him [i.e., Hajji Fayat] about the fortress of Basra; in what
condition it was or if they had carried on any military works in it. He
told me that they had done nothing [there]. I [also] asked him what
troops were at Basra. He told me that Mehraed Pasha, the beylerbey
of Basra, had placed there five hundred Turkish arquebusiers (turcos
espimgardeiros) and an alcaide mors holds office there, stationed in the
citadel of the fortress; moreover the alcaide mor and these five hundred
Turkish arquebusiers never go outside the fortress for any reason at all;
and in the town [itself] there are a thousand Turkish horsemen and
seven hundred arquebusiers, all of which makes two thousand and two

4 i.e., literally, in Portuguese: “que era rauy bem feito”—it was very well
done.
4 Alcaide mor-i.e., in Ottoman parlance, dizdar-the senior officer in com­
mand of the garrison troops. The word alcaide is derived from the Arabio oZ-
kaid (cf. S. R. Dalgado, Qloaeario Luso-Asi<Uicot (Coimbra, 1922), p. 21).