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To us the spectacle presented by one who had been en- trusted by Government with a special embassy transform- ing himself with such suddenness into a sea-rover, appears incongruous enough, but such was evidently not the view taken by the Portuguese traders in Pětâni. For, says Pinto,

"All the Assistants very much commended his valor- ous resolution, and for the execution thereof there were many young Soldiers among them that offered to accom- pany him in that voyage; some likewise presented him with Mony, and others furnished him with divers neces- saries."

Accordingly, on Saturday, May 9th, in the year of Grace 1540, Antonio de Faria sailed from Pătâni, "and steered North Northwest, towards the Kingdom of Champaa, with an intent to discover the Ports and Havens thereof, and also by means of some good booty to furnish himself with such things as he wanted," a proper spirit, truly, for one who regarded it as his special mission to punish piracy! He first touched at Pûlau Kondor, as Marco Polo and many another traveller had done before him, crossed thence to the shores of Champa and skirted the coast in a northerly direction until a river was reached which formed the boundary between that kingdom and Kambodia. This river Pinto calls "Pulo Cambim," though pûlau significs an island, and he tells us on the authority of the natives that it had its source in a lake named Pinator in the neighbourhood of which there were gold mines, while there was a "diamond quarry" on its shores at a place called Buarquirim. It is