Finding the port dangerous, Soarez came to anchor about a league from the city of Jiddah, yet so excellent were some of the cannon of the place, that three or four pieces were able to carry that prodigious distance. Soliman sent a message to the Christian fleet offering a single combat man to man, which Gaspar de Silva and Antonio de Menezes both offered to accept, but Soarez would not allow the combat. Soarez now caused the channel leading up to Jiddah to be sounded, and at this time the inhabitants were much alarmed by the fire of one of the Portuguese vessels; but Soliman appeased the tumult, and made his appearance without the walls with some of his men, while the walls were filled by vast multitudes of the infidels, who rent the air with loud cries. After two days of inaction, the Portuguese began to complain of the delay; but Soarez appeased his officers by shewing his instructions, in which he was ordered to fight the fleet of the Mamelukes, which could not be accomplished, and not to attack the city, where there might be much danger and little chance of profit. Though the votes differed in the council of war, it was resolved by a majority to desist from the enterprise against Jiddah, and accordingly Soarez and his armament retired to Kamaran, whence he detached several ships to different parts of the Red Sea. At this place died Duarte Galvam, a learned and ingenious man, who had been employed in several embassies in Europe, and though above seventy years of age was now going ambassador to _Prester John_. At the time of his death, he told his attendants that his son George and all his men had been cast away in their vessel, and that the inhabitants of the island of Dalac had cut off the heads of Lorenzo de Cosme and others that had been sent to that place. All this was afterwards found true, yet it was utterly impossible that the intelligence could have reached Duarte at Kamaran before his death.