In the afternoon of that same day, Pietro Alfonso, the Portuguese, came in a prau. He had not disembarked before the king sent to summon him and told him banteringly to answer us truly in whatever we should ask him, even if he did come from Tarennate. He told us that he had been sixteen years in India, but x in Maluco, for Maluco had been discovered secretly for that time. [488] It was a year all but one fortnight, since a large ship had arrived at that place from Malaca, and had left laden with cloves, but had been obliged to remain in Bandan for some months because of bad weather. Its captain was Tristan de Meneses, [489] a Portuguese. When he asked the latter what was the news back in Christendom, he was told that a fleet of five ships had left Siviglia to discover Maluco in the name of the king of Spagnia under command of Fernando de Magallianes, a Portuguese; that the king of Portugallo, angered that a Portuguese should be opposed to him, had sent some ships to the cape of Bonna Speransa [i.e., Good Hope], and a like number to the cape of Sancta Maria, where the cannibals live, in order to prevent their passage, but that he was not found. Then the king of Portagalo had heard that the said captain had passed into another sea, and was on his way to Malucho. He immediately wrote directing his chief captain of India, one Diego Lopes de Sichera, [490] to send six ships to Maluco. But the latter did not send them because the Grand Turk was coming to Malacha, for he was obliged to send sixty sail to oppose him at the strait of Mecha in the land of Juda. They found only a few galleys that had been beached on the shore of the strong and beautiful city of Adem, all of which they burned. [491] After that the chief captain sent a large galleon with two tiers of guns to Malucho to oppose us, but it was unable to proceed because of certain shoals and currents of water near Malaca, and contrary winds. The captain of that galleon was Francesco Faria, [492] a Portuguese. It was but a few days since a caravel with two junks had been in that place to get news of us. The junks went to Bachian for a cargo of cloves with seven Portuguese. As those Portuguese did not respect the women of the king and of his subjects, although the king told them often not to act so, and since they refused to discontinue, they were put to death. When the men in the caravel heard that, they immediately returned to Malaca abandoning the junks with four hundred bahars of cloves, and sufficient merchandise to purchase one hundred bahars more. Every year a number of junks sail from Malaca to Bandan [493] for mace and nutmeg, and from Bandan to Malucho for cloves. Those people sail in three days in those junks of theirs from Maluco to Bandan, and in a fortnight from Bandan to Malaca. The king of Portagalo had enjoyed Malucho already for x years secretly, so that the king of Spagnia might not learn of it. That Portuguese remained with us until three in the morning, and told us