The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: gone, took leave in the most tender manner of the governor and his
other friends, recommended our voyage to the Blessed Virgin, and in
the field, before we went on shipboard, made a short exhortation, so
moving and pathetic, that it touched the hearts of all who heard it.
In the evening we went on board, and early the next morning being
the 3rd of April, 1625, we set sail.
After some days we discovered about noon the island Socotora, where
we proposed to touch. The sky was bright and the wind fair, nor had
we the least apprehension of the danger into which we were falling,
but with the utmost carelessness and jollity held on our course. At
night, when our sailors, especially the Moors, were in a profound
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