e great disturbance caused by the sight of these ships,
the King was very desirous of knowing what they were, and he spoke to his
diviners, asking them to tell him what ships were those and whence they
came. The diviners conversed with their devils, and told him that the
ships belonged to a great king and came from very far; and according to
what they found written, these were the people who were to seize India
by war and peace, as they had already told him many times, because the
period which had been written down was concluded. The King, much moved,
asked them whether his kingdom would receive much injury. They replied
that our people would do no harm except to those who did it to them.

Upon this the King became very thoughtful, and talked of this frequently
with his people, who very much contradicted what the diviners said, and
they told him not to believe them, for in this they never hit upon the
truth, because at the time that our ships arrived more than four hundred
years had elapsed since in one year more than eight hundred sail of large
and small ships had come to India from the ports of Malacca and China and
the Lequeos, with people of many nations, and all laden with merchandise
of great value, which they brought for sale; and they had come to
Calicut, and had run along the coast and had gone to Cambay; and they
were so numerous that they had filled the country, and had settled as
dwellers in all the towns of the sea-coast, where they were received and
welcomed like merchants, which they were. When those people arrived thus
on the coast of Malabar everybody considered that they were the people
whom their prophecies mentioned as those who would take India, and they
had inquired of the diviners, who, looking at their records, told them
not to be afraid, since the time when India was to be taken had not yet
arrived.

Thus it was; for those people had gone over all India, trading and
selling their merchandise during many years, in which many of them
married and established their abodes and became naturalized in the
country, and mixed up with the inhabitants of the country. Many others
returned to their own country, and as no more ever arrived, they went on
diminishing in number, until they came to an end; but a numerous progeny
remained from them, and because they were people of large property, and
numerous in the towns where they resided, they had a quarter set apart,
like as in Portugal and Castile in other tim