the king of Campar to
Malacca, where he exercised the office of Bendara with so much judgment
and propriety, that in four months the city was visibly improved, great
numbers of people resorting thither who had formerly fled to Mahomet to
avoid the oppressions of Ninachetu. Perceiving the growth of the city
under the wise administration of Abdela, Mahomet determined to put a
stop to this prosperity by means of a fraud peculiar to a Moor. He gave
out secretly, yet so that it might spread abroad, that his son-in-law
had gone over to the Portuguese at Malacca with his knowledge and
consent, and that the same thing was done by all those who seemed to fly
there from Bintang, with the design to seize upon the fort on the first
opportunity, and restore it to him who was the lawful prince. This
secret, as intended by Mahomet, was at length divulged at Malacca, where
it produced the intended effect, as the commandant, George de
Albuquerque, gave more credit to this false report than to the honest
proceedings of the Bendara, who was tried and condemned as a traitor,
and had his head cut off on a public scaffold. In consequence of this
event, the city was left almost desolate by the flight of the native
inhabitants, and was afterwards oppressed by famine.

During the year 1513, while these transactions were going on at Malacca,
the viceroy Albuquerque visited the most important places under his
charge, and gave the necessary, orders for their security. He dispatched
his nephew Don Garcia to Cochin, with directions to expedite the
construction of the fort then building at Calicut. He appointed a
squadron of four sail, under the command of his nephew Pedro de
Albuquerque, to cruise from the mouth, of the Red Sea to that of the
Persian Gulf, with orders to receive the tribute of Ormuz when it became
due, and then to discover the island of Bahrayn, the seat of the great
pearl-fishery in that gulf. He sent ambassadors well attended to several
princes. Diego Fernandez de Beja went to the king of Cambaya, to treat
about the erection of a fort at Din, which had been before consented to,
but was now refused at the instigation of Maluk Azz. Fernandez returned
to Goa with magnificent presents to Albuquerque, among which was a
Rhinoceros or _Abada_, which was afterwards lost in the Mediterranean on
its way from king Manuel to the pope along with other Indian rarities.
Juan Gonzalez de Castello Branco was sent to the king of Bisnagar, to
deman