Volume 6, Chapter 4, Section 13 -- Account of an Expedition of
the Portuguese from India to Madagascar in 1613. Being anxious
to find out a considerable number of Portuguese who were
reported to exist in the island of St. Lawrence or Madagascar,
having been cast away at different times on that island, and
also desirous of propagating the ever blessed gospel among its
inhabitants, and to exclude the Hollanders from that island by
establishing a friendly correspondence with the native princes,
the viceroy Don Jerome de Azevedo sent thither, in 1613, a
caravel from Goa commanded by Paul Rodrigues de Costa,
accompanied by two Jesuits, some interpreters, and a competent
number of soldiers. This island is about 260 leagues in length
and 600 in circumference, its greatest extent being from N.N.E.
to S.S.W. It is 80 leagues from E. to W. where widest, but
considerably less towards the north, where it ends in a point
named St. Ignatius which is about 15 leagues from east to west.
It may be considered as divided into t