never escaped have died by the torture or the fire. _Happie is he that can beware by other men’s harmes._” “I thank you, sir,” says I, “and will try to remember that which you have ofttimes told me--viz., _A close mouth catches no flys_.” “Good lad!” says he, “and may I see you return safe in six months or thereabouts, as full of the Portuguese as a _banyan_ is full of deceits. But let me counsel you to take with you such weapons as you may chance to have, and to sleep with ’em under your pillow of nights; for Goa is the most shameless ill-governed town that ever called itself Christian.” Much other good counsel did my esteemed friend give me during the short space of time that we yet spent together, for it took no long delay to prepare me for my journey. ’Twas thus that I found myself, in the early part of the year 1668-69, at the age of twenty-two years, equipped as a gentleman of good degree for to set out on my travels, having letters with me to several respectable gentlemen at Goa, a tolerable supply of money, and suitable weapons for my defence. Likewise I had with me my servant Loll Duss,[52] a most excellent good fellow, that had served me from my first arriving in Surat, and might put to shame many of our English lacqueys. ’Tis the custom in East India for persons of any consideration to carry about with them a great following of servants (though the cost of this is not so great as with us, these men being habited in white calicut, and eating only rice and a little fish); but I had no list to waste either the Company’s substance or my own upon such display as this. Nevertheless, so confident did I feel in my situation, and so sure that my fortune was now to be made, that I writ to my father and to Dorothy that they should not wonder though they heard no more touching me for a long time, for that I might be chief Vizier to the Great Mogul when next they heard speak of me. To Mr Martin’s care I intrusted the diary I had kept, and such things as I must leave behind me, he promising also to keep for my return any letters that might be brought for me by ship from England. This good friend bare me company down to the landing-place, and as his wont was, bade me farewell with a proverb-- “Ned, suffer me to advise you once more, _Speake faire, and thinke what you will_. Even if by chance your argument should convince a Papist, it won’t profit either of you, since you will find yourself in the Inquisition, and he must needs show an extraordinary great soundness and devotion to save his life, and bring the faggots for to burn you.”