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The number of Christians, thus daily increasing more and more, another priest, called Francis Alvarez, came to second Vaz, and both of them laboured so happily in conjunction, that the whole people of Momoya renounced idolatry, and professed the faith of Jesus Christ.
They land upon the desert islands of Martin Vaz, again reach the coast of Brazil at Rio Doce, which they mistake for Ascension Island, and are finally obliged to winter in the desert island of Santa Clara. The putting into port at this place was marked by several disagreeable events.
This was to Anger a favourable effect of God's providence; for the same hand which drives the guilty to the precipice, sometimes preserves them from falling into it, and pulls them back, after a miraculous manner. The Japonese, very happily for himself, met there Alvarez Vaz, just ready to set sail for Malacca.
This was however soon interrupted, and chiefly by the imprudence of a man named Diogo Vaz, who made use of such insulting language to the king, because he delayed payment of a sum of money he owed him, that the courtiers, seized with indignation, immediately stabbed him with their krises, and, the alarm running through the city, others of the Portuguese were likewise murdered.
But this, excellent as it was in itself, was by no means all; with two such perfectly equipped factories as we had found upon the river it was certain that the slave traffic on the Fernan Vaz must have assumed quite formidable proportions; and it was the skipper's idea that before our wounded should be lit to be moved, one or more slavers would certainly enter the river, when it would be our own fault if we did not capture them.
By this means he restored those Christians to the faith, who had before forsaken it; and brought into it those idolaters who had refused to embrace it when it was preached to them by Simon Vaz and Francis Alvarez. There was neither town nor village which the Father did not visit, and where those new converts did not set up crosses and build churches.
"Upon this we all turned our eyes upon the Spaniard, who had been shrinking back as if to avoid the lamplight. He must have been a tall, up-standing man in his prime; but now, as Tristram Vaz drew him forward, his knees bowed as if he cringed for some punishment.
And now there began to be general talk about leaving the river and reporting ourselves at Sierra Leone; for not only had we ships in plenty to accommodate all hands, but those among us who were most experienced felt that, after having made such a clean sweep as we had, it was exceedingly unlikely that there would be any more chances to capture either slaves or ships in the Fernan Vaz for some time to come.
In order to escape nostalgia and melancholy, which are sure to be fatal, the emigrant should be valeted by a faithful and attached native. The habitat of the gorilla has been unduly limited to the left banks of the Gaboon and Fernao Vaz rivers, and to the lands lying between north latitude 2deg., and south latitude 2deg., in fact, to the immediate vicinity of the equator.
"I also have heard of you, and of the two captains in whose company you discovered these islands." I nodded again. "Their names," said I, "are John Gonsalvez Zarco and Tristram Vaz. You may visit them, if you please, on the greater island, which they govern between them." He bent his head. "The fame of your discovery, Sir, reached England some years ago.
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