After a troublesome voyage they reached the mouth of the river in the autumn, but were forced by hunger and adverse winds to return along the coast of Brazil.
He was imprisoned in that town for four months, and then sent 150 miles up the Kwanza River and confined in a fort, till, through the death of the Portuguese pilot, he was employed to take the governor's pinnace down to Luanda.
After an illness of eight months Battel was sent by the governor of Luanda, João Furtado de Mendonça, to Nzari, on the Congo, in a pinnace to collect ivory, wheat, and palm-tree oil.
Afterwards he was employed in trading expeditions along the coast, and on one occasion he was left by the Portuguese as a hostage for two months with the Gaga (his rendering of "Jagas" or Imbangala).
The promise was retracted, and Battel fled into the woods of Kasanze, a refugee area north of Luanda, where he resolved to wait for a new governor.
At this point the narrative ends with a full description of the different regions of Loango, their natural features, and the customs of the inhabitants.
His veracity has been questioned, but his narratives have been partly confirmed by the similar account of the Congo district given by the traveler Duarte Lopes in 1591.