When the King of Tidore heard of their piracies, and of the number of Malay seamen they had captured, he dealt with the question humanely and diplomatically, suggesting that all these prisoners should be returned by him to their island homes, where they could make known the greatness and splendour of the kingdom of Spain. This the Spaniards consented to do, reserving only the people from Brunei, who, as already related, were brought to Seville. As the king was a very zealous Muhammadan, they also killed all the swine on board to please him, and he in return gave them a large number of goats and fowls, besides quantities of vegetable food, including sago derived from the sago palm, which was the principal nourishment of these Molucca Malays. In the Island of Ternate there arrived presently a Portuguese in a Malay prau, who gave them very interesting information derived from the visit a year previously of a Portuguese ship. The survivors of Magellan's expedition learnt then that the main facts of their voyage had become known to the King of Portugal some time after their departure, and that ships had been sent to the Cape of Good Hope and to other places to prevent their passage. When it was learnt that they had rounded South America and made their way across the Pacific, an attempt was made to dispatch a Portuguese fleet of six ships to the Molucca Islands to capture Magellan's expedition. But this fleet was prevented from accomplishing its purpose through its being detained in the Red Sea by the necessity of fighting a Turkish fleet. Whilst the two ships stayed at Tidore many festivities took place in connection with the visits of chiefs or kings of the other Molucca Islands. These Malay princes came in their praus, some of which had three tiers of rowers on each side, in all 120 rowers, and they hoisted great banners made of white, yellow, and red parrot feathers. Gongs of bronze and brass were sounded and timed to the rowers' actions. Sometimes the praus would be filled with young girls, female slaves (though not feeling any of the misery of slavery), who were to be presented as household servants to the daughters of chiefs betrothed to this and that heir apparent. The kings of the islands sat on rich carpets, no doubt received by indirect trade from Persia. They wore cloths of gold and silk manufactured in China, and the women were clad in beautiful silk garments from the waist to the knees. They brought with them, amongst other presents for the King of Spain, "two extremely beautiful dead birds". These were as large as thrushes, with a small head and a long beak. They were of a tawny colour, but with beautiful long plumes of a different tint.[39] The natives who brought them called them the Birds of God, and said that they came from the terrestrial Paradise. This was probably the first mention in our European literature of Birds of Paradise.