Having been informed by Diego Fernandez Pereyra that the island of Socotora near the mouth of the Red Sea was inhabited by Christians who were subject to the Moors, the king of Portugal ordered Tristan de Cunna and Alfonso de Albuquerque to direct their course to that island, and to endeavour to possess themselves of the fort, that the Portuguese ships might be enabled to winter at that island, and to secure the navigation of the Arabian Gulf against the Moors; for which purpose they carried out with them a wooden fort ready to put up. De Cunna was destined to command the trading ships which were to return to Europe, and Albuquerque to cruise with a small squadron on the coast of Arabia against the Moors. These two commanders sailed from Lisbon on the 6th of March 1507, with thirteen vessels in which were 1300 soldiers, some of whom died by the way, having been infected by the plague then raging in Lisbon; but when they came under the line, the sickness left them. Having come in sight of Cape Augustine in Brasil, they took a new departure from thence to cross the Southern Atlantic for the Cape of Good Hope; but in this course De Cunna held so far to the south that he discovered the islands still called by his name. At this place the ships were parted in a storm, each following a separate course till they met again at Mozambique. Alvaro Tellez, however, who commanded one of these ships, overshot Mozambique and proceeded to Cape Guardafu, where he took six ships belonging to the Moors, so laden with all kind of goods, that he made a sort of bridge from them to his own vessel, consisting of bales thrown into the sea, over which his men passed as on dry land.