en complied with all the wishes
of the Portuguese.

Albuquerque's successive measures were taken with great skill; he
first got the King to surrender all his artillery, on the ground that
it was needed for the defence of the fortress against a fleet which
was rumoured to be coming from Egypt; and he next persuaded the King
to issue an edict that the inhabitants of Ormuz should be disarmed.
The completion of the fortress occupied some months, at the close of
which, in August 1515, Albuquerque unwillingly consented to the
return of his favourite nephew, Dom Garcia de Noronha, to Portugal.

While at Ormuz he was visited by envoys from all the petty rulers
along the Persian Gulf, and even by chiefs from the interior of
Arabia, Persia, and Tartary. His accumulated labours by this period
had broken down his health, but his fame was at its height.

'From all parts of the interior country so many were they who came
daily into the fortress in order to look upon Affonso de
Albuquerque that our people could not keep them back; and although
his illness prevented him from going out very often, they begged
those who were on guard at the doorway {138} of the fortress to at
least permit them to get sight of him, for they had come from their
own country for this express purpose. And if at any time he rode on
horseback, so large a crowd of people followed after him along the
streets, that he could hardly make his way through them; and as the
fame of his person, and his greatness, was the topic of all those
parts, and in consequence of the news which the ambassadors whom
Shah Ismail had sent to him had circulated, they sent their
servants to him with orders to draw his portrait to the life.'[7]

[Footnote 7: Albuquerque's _Commentaries_, vol. iv. p. 181.]

Every day, however, the great Governor's health grew worse, and on
September 26, 1515, he summoned all the captains to his residence in
Ormuz, and declared to them that since his illness promised to prove
fatal, he wished them to swear to obey whoever he nominated as his
successor. On October 20 he appointed Pedro de Albuquerque Captain of
Ormuz, and from that time gave up attending to business and began to
prepare for death.

On November 8, 1515, he set sail from Ormuz in the _Flor da Rosa_,
commanded by his faithful friend, Diogo Fernandes de Beja, hoping
that he should end his days in Goa, the city which he had conquered
and which he loved. But he was