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What more could any reasonable individual desire? Like most African rivers, the Fernan Vaz has a bar, but the sea breaks upon it only when the wind blows fresh from the north-west, owing to the fact that as far up as the town of Olomba the river flows parallel to the line of coast, being separated from the open Atlantic by a low, sandy peninsula, varying from one to three miles in breadth, terminating in a spit which ordinarily shelters the bar from the rollers, leaving a narrow channel of unbroken water, wide enough to enable a couple of craft of moderate tonnage to pass each other comfortably.
"Good bye, Dicky," he cried, and fired. Hatteras tumbled down to the boat-side. The blacks down-river were roused by the shot. Walker shouted to them to stay where they were, and as soon as their camp was quiet he stepped on shore. He filled up the whiskey jar with water, tied it to Hatteras' feet, shook his hand, and pushed the body into the river. The next morning he started back to Fernan Vaz.
He arrived there the 16th of December, 1544, where he happened to meet with Michael Vaz, vicar-general of the Indies.
A fleet which sailed from the west of India a short time after that of Alboquerque, under the command of Jorge de Brito, anchored in the road of Achin, in their way to the Molucca Islands. There was at this time at that place a man of the name of Joano Borba, who spoke the language of the country, having formerly fled thither from Pase when Diogo Vaz was assassinated.
Accordingly, with the consent of the king of Portugal, the island of Madeira was bestowed in hereditary property upon Zarco and Vaz; one division named Funchal being given to Zarco, and the other moiety, named Machico, to Vaz.
One of his ships got separated from him, and the commander, Luys Vaz de Torres, sailed farther to the south-west, and thereby learned that the New Australia was not a continent but an island.
The inhabitants of Momoya, naturally changeable and cruel, began the massacre by the murder of Simon Vaz, their first pastor; and had killed Alvarez, whom they pursued with flights of arrows to the sea side, if accidentally he had not found a bark in readiness, which bore him off, all wounded as he was, and saved him from the fury of those Christian barbarians.
His first care after this formality was accomplished was to despatch Gaspard de Lemos to Lisbon, to announce the discovery of this rich and fertile country. Lemos took with him the narrative of the expedition written by Pedro Vaz de Caminha, and an important astronomical document, the work of Master Joao, in which was doubtless stated the exact situation of the new conquest.
On the Fernao Vaz there are now five factories, each named after some French town: Paris Factory, however, had fallen to ruins, the traders having migrated 150 miles higher up the Kamma River. Here a certain drunken kinglet, "Rampano," breaks everything he finds in the house, and pays damages when he returns to his senses.
Anger, who still carried about him a troubled conscience, and thereby was easily induced to any proposition which tended to compose it, followed the advice of Vaz, and returned with him. Coming on shore, he there found George Alvarez, the same person who had brought him the first time to Molucca.