In the month of May 1515, Alphonsus de Albuquerque, the Portuguese
viceroy of India, sent Fernando Gomes de Limos from Ormus, as ambassador
to the Xec or Shah Ismael, king of Persia; and it is said they travelled
300 leagues through a country as pleasant as France. This Xec, or Shah
Ismael, went much a-hunting, and was fond of trout fishing, which are
abundant in the rivers of his kingdom. The women of Persia are the most
beautiful in the world; insomuch that Alexander the Great used to call
them the _golden-eyed women_. In this year died the viceroy Alphonsus de
Albuquerque, who was succeeded by Lopez Suares.

In 1516, Fernando Perez de Andrada was commanded by the king of Portugal
to pass to the great kingdom of China and likewise to Bengala, with a
dispatch to John Coelo, who was the first Portuguese who drank of the
waters of the Ganges. In April 1517, Andrada took in a loading of pepper
at Cochin, as the principal merchandize for sale in China, for which
country he sailed with eight ships, four Portuguese and four Malayans. On
his arrival in China, finding he could not be allowed to land without an
embassy, he dispatched Thomas Perez, with instructions for that purpose,
from the city of Canton, where they came to anchor. The embassy travelled
400 leagues by land to the city of Pekin, where the king resided; for
China is the largest kingdom in the world. From Sailana in the south,
which is in 20° N. it reaches to the latitude almost of 50° N. which must
be 500 leagues in length, and it is said to be 300 leagues in breadth[28].
Fernando Perez was fourteen months in the isle of Veniaga, endeavouring
to acquire as much knowledge as he could of the country; and although one
Raphael Perestrello had formerly been there, in a junk belonging to some
merchants of Malacca, yet Perez certainly deserves the merit of this
discovery; as well because he acted by the command of the king his master,
as in discovering so much by land by means of Thomas Perez, and by sea
through George Mascarenhas, who sailed to the city of Foquiam, in 24° N.