a fortnight we entered the strait of Sincapura, having followed
the new route, which is called that of China. It is a very wide
channel, some forty or fifty brazas deep. We anchored at Malaca on
Tuesday, December nine, by our account, but on Wednesday by that of
Malaca. We left there on Christmas eve, with favorable weather. In
the neighborhood of Punta de Gale [or Galle], which is located in
Ceylan, we experienced a heavy storm. When that had subsided, the
currents carried us to the islands of Mal-Divar [_i.e._, Maldives],
a voyage from which few emerge in safety. We lost our reckoning,
and were in great need of wood and water. But by God's help, after
having approached one of those islands, our necessity was relieved
by some Malabar pirates for money. We were sailing among that great
forest of islands when we became becalmed, the peril most feared by
pilots. When we were all grieving over that, the chief of the Lascars,
a Moro by nation, and religion, arose. Taking a dish in his hand,
he begged us all for an alms for our Lady of Guadalupe of the city
of Cochin, [81] assuring us that she would give us wind. He pledged
himself to give double the alms collected, even if she did not give
the wind. Much surprised in so great confidence in a Moro, and all
of us being encouraged, he collected in a short time eighteen pesos,
and after folding them in a cloth, he tied them to the mizzen-masthead
begging the Virgin to fulfil her promise. The fact was that from that
day the wind to navigate (little or much) never failed us, until we
reached Cochin. That was on January twenty-three, and on entering the
bar there, we met a fleet of Malabar pirates who were sufficiently
powerful to oppose us. But God so disposed that we came upon them
when they were tired out, as we afterward learned, by a battle that
they had waged for the space of two days with another pirate, also a
Malabar--who, conquered by them at last, scuttled his ship and went
down with all on board, in order not to fall into their hands. For