In this floating funeral pile eight hundred Moors, who had been captured in peaceful commerce, were driven on shore as a warning to the people of Calicut, who flocked in great numbers to the beach to extinguish the fire, and draw out from the burning mass those whom they found alive, over whom “they made great lamentations.” When the friar reached the king with his revolting message, and deprived of his hands, ears, and nose, an object of the deepest humiliation, he found himself in the midst of the wives and relations of those who had been so shamefully massacred, bewailing in the most heart-rending manner their loss, and imploring the king to render them aid and protection from further injury. Although the king’s power was feeble compared to that of the Portuguese, with their trained men of war, and vastly superior instruments of destruction, the sight of his faithful Brahmin, _whom he had despatched in good faith_ to offer any conditions of peace which Dom Gama might demand, led him to resolve with “great oaths” that he would expend the whole of his kingdom in avenging the terrible wrongs which had been inflicted upon his people. Summoning to his council his ministers and the principal Moors of the city, he arranged measures for their protection from the even still greater dishonour and ruin which was threatened with awful earnestness by their invaders. The Moors, with one voice, “offered to spend their lives and property for vengeance.” In every river arrangements were made for the construction of armed proas, large rowing barges and sambacks, and as many vessels of war as the means which their country afforded could produce. But long before this fleet was ready, Dom Gama had sailed with his expedition for Cochym, where he arrived on the 7th of November, having on his passage done as much harm as he could to the merchants of Calicut, many of whose vessels he fell across in his cruise along the coast. Cochym, like Cananore, had resolved from the first to court the friendship of Portugal. Its rulers conceived it more to their interests to submit to the conditions of Dom Gama, however humiliating, than to resist his assumed authority. Consequently when his fleet made its appearance, the king of Cochym was ready to receive him with every honour; and when his boat, with its canopy of crimson velvet, very richly dressed, approached the shore, the king, accompanied by his people, came to the water-side to meet him, prepared to secure his friendship by any submission, however abject. Numerous rich and valuable presents having been interchanged, arrangements were made to provide the cargo the captain-major required, on similar conditions to those which had been entered into at Cananore. [Sidenote: and at Coulam.]