On another occasion a body of hostile Nairs made a surprise attack on the island of Cochin, but were beaten off by the workers in the rice swamps with their rustic weapons. Their victory was the easier because a Nair considered himself polluted if one of these low-caste peasants approached him. Pacheco, delighted at the victory of these humble workmen, and mindful moreover of more than one desertion of Nairs at difficult moments, suggested that the King should make Nairs of these men, in the belief apparently that the caste system could be brushed aside or altered at will.[10] It was only after heated and repeated argument that the King was able to persuade him that the thing he asked was impossible. The heroic labourers were, however, permitted to bear arms and to approach Nairs in future. For himself Pacheco refused the King’s spices and other gifts, aware that he could ill afford them, and accepted only the strange coat-of-arms that the King bestowed on him--five crowns of gold on a crimson ground--emblem of the much blood he had shed in his victory over five kings--surrounded by eight green castles on blue and white. At the beginning of the year 1505 he set out for home, to the sorrow of the King of Cochin, and in the summer arrived at Lisbon. He was received with great honour; on the Thursday after his arrival he walked with the King in solemn procession from the Cathedral to the Convent of São Domingos. The Bishop of Vizeu preached, exalting Pacheco’s heroic deeds, and similar services were held throughout Portugal. News of his exploits were sent to the Pope and to the Kings of Christendom. Pacheco received a yearly pension of 50,000 réis, a considerable sum in those days,[11] and other gifts and favours, and he married D. Antonia de Albuquerque, daughter of one of King Manoel’s secretaries. Better still, he received further employment from the King, being entrusted with the survey of the coast of South-East Africa. Already in 1505 he was at work on his _Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis_, which had to wait nearly four centuries for a publisher. He was more accustomed to hold the sword than the pen, but his book contains much of interest and affords occasional insight into the character of its author. Thus he says--and the philosophic tone of the words is of interest in view of the neglect and poverty into which he is said to have fallen in his last years: “No one is content with his possessions, and in the end eight feet of earth suffice us and there ends and is consumed the vanity of our high thoughts,” and “Virtuous men who love God and are of clean heart and uncovetous are never forsaken of the grace of the Holy Spirit.”