Page 38 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

lxviii INTRODUCTION.
the Tcxel on May 19th, 1600. The remaining two ships
under Van Warwijck left Amboina on May 8th, 1599, for
Ternate, arriving there on the 22nd. Leaving some of
their company here to transact their business affairs, they
left on August 19th, and arrived on November 19th at
Bantam, having the day before met and spoken with the
two Zeeland ships referred to above (the Zon and the
Langebercque), which had been lying at that place for
eight months.1 On January 21st, 1600, the two ships
under Van Warwijck sailed from Bantam, and reached St.
Helena on May 17th, but could not land, owing to the
presence of a number of Portuguese carracks, so left again
on the 22nd, and reached home about September, 1600.2
The carracks whose presence at St. Helena prevented
Van Warwick's ships from refreshing there included the
one with which the Leeuw and Leeuzvi?i had had an engage­
ment, as mentioned in the footnote supra. Couto, in his
Decada XIIy Liv. IV, cap. xiii, gives the Portuguese version
of this affair. He says :—
We seem to have been forgetting the fleet of D. Jeronymo
Coutinho, which we left taking in cargo in order to leave for the
Kingdom; wherefore we shall give an account of it, and of what
happened to it on the voyage. And because the captain-major
D. Jeronymo Coutinho was sailing from Goa, and the other five
ships3 of his fleet were sailing from Cochim, the Count Viceroy
ordered the passing of a provision to D. Vasco da Gama, who was
going as captain of the ship 5. Matiheus, that he should fill the
office of captain-major of the five ships, and the other captains
should obey him until they should meet with D. Jeronymo
1 See footnote infra, p. lxxiii.
2 See De Jonge, op. cit., pp. 203-210, 374-474 ; The Journall or
Dayly Register, ... of the voyage, accomplished by eight shippes of
Amsterdam, etc. (London, 1601).
3 These five ships were the Sdo Roque, the Concei\ao, the N. S. da
Paz, the Sdo Simao, and the Sdo Martinho, all of which had come
from Portugal in 1599 (see infra, p. Ixxxiii). Faria y Sousa, by a
strange blunder, records the dispatch of this fleet by the new Viceroy,
Aires de Saldanha, at the beginning of 1601 (Asia Portuguesa,
tom. Ill, Pt. II, cap. vi).
INTRODUCTION. I s ix
j Coutinho, who was the captain-major. This fidalgo, who remained
loading in Goa, set sail on Christmas Day with a grand send-off i
given him by the Count, and set off on his course, to whom we I
shall return presently. The other five ships, which were loading
in Cochim, set sail one after another up to the 15th1 of January,
!
1600,2 with which year we are dealing : in such sort, that, as soon
as each one was loaded, it at once set out without waiting for the
other, and thus went pursuing its voyage with such fair weather,
that on the 25th of April the ship of Diogo de Sousa3 made
landfall at the island of Santa Helena: bearing in her company a
large caravel, which she had fallen in with4 in 16 degrees, on its I;
way from the Rio da Prata5 to Angola; and on going to look for
the anchoring-place, which is opposite the Hermitage, they saw
lying at anchor two Dutch ships, that had been waiting there five
or six days for two others of their company. Diogo de Sousa,
who was a fidalgo, and whom they called the Galician,6 because
he came from Viana, as soon as he saw them put his ship in '
order, and got ready his guns, and cast anchor at a little distance
from them, because he was greatly in need of water, and because
he knew very well that if they put out to sea the corsairs were
sure to come after them and might give them trouble; thus pre­
pared he proceeded to cast anchor with much confidence, having
1 Fa. Joao dos Santos, who went at the request of the retiring Vice­
roy as chaplain in the S. Simao, says that this ship left Cochin on
January 19th (.Ethiopia Oriental, Pt. II, Liv. IV, cap. xx).
2 Uy one of these ships Diogo de Couto sent to the King his lkcada
Sexta. This had a better fortune than the Decada Sctirna, which the
author sent two years later by the Sdo Tiago, and which seems to have
been destroyed with all other documents by the captain to prevent
their falling into the hands of the Dutch, who, at St. Helena, on
March 16th, 1602, captured the ship after a severe fight (see Couto’s
letter prefixed to his Decada Sctima, which he had to rewrite in
summary ; Faria y Sousa, Asia Portuguesa, tom. Ill, Pt. II, cap. vi ;
1 Valcntyn, Sumatra, p. 29).
3 The Sdo Simao, in which was Fa. Joao dos Santos, who gives details
of the voyage in his Ethiopia Oriental, Pt. II, Liv. iv, caps, xx-xxvi.
It seems that there was an elephant on board; and the good father
naively confesses that the sight of the terror inspired in this poor
beast by a severe storm that the ship encountered before passing
Cape Agulhas added greatly to his own fear. To add to the horrors
of this tempest, certain huge fishes of fearful and wonderful mien
appeared one night around the ship—fishes such as had never been
seen before by the sailors, who were certain therefore that they were
!
devils.
4 On April 23rd, says Dos Santos.
6 The River Plate.
® The Galicians (Gallegos) are still noted for their robustness and
activity.
I