No. 39.— 1889.] account of ceylon. 287 



to death. Some advised that we should be thrown over- 

 board, in order that we might not have our revenge on them 

 if we related to our fellows what courtesy they had shown to 

 us. Others opposed this in the hope of getting all the better 

 quarter from us. All of which we heard very plainly, until 

 one of us let out with some menaces, as our flags were now 

 close at hand. Then one of the number tried to get at the 

 powder magazine with the lunt, and would certainly have 

 done so if one of themselves had not prevented it.* However, 

 I got my revenge for my thirteen weeks' imprisonment 

 among the Portuguese, especially in the island of Ceilon, 

 where I was on five or six occasions, and we defeated them. 

 For although our officers called out ' Messieurs, or soldiers ! 

 we have the name of compassionate Hollanders, then let us 

 have the deed also, and give quarter ! ' yet we acted as if we 

 did not hear it, but shot and laid about lustily, as long as we 

 could stir arm or hand, so that verily some hundreds forgot 

 to stand up. For, as I have said, they also do not spare us, 

 and when they could give us a short death, with their fire- 

 lock and a ball through the head, they do not do it ; but stab 

 us and wound us with their long steggats, or swords, for a 

 long time, indeed even after our death they give us ten or 

 twenty stabs."] 



In November, 1653, I came again to Ceilon, and then had 

 the option of going to Batavia or to my fatherland. I was 

 out of sorts for about a year and a half, and although I was 

 not actually laid up, still every day at noon I was so weak 

 that you might have pushed me over with a finger. I and 

 others who had similar complaints felt as if not a drop of 

 blood was left in our bodies, and our faces were as white as 



* Baldseus (I. c, p. 789) says : — " About this time Commissary vanGoens, 

 in his return from Persia and Suratte to Ceylon, had the good fortune 

 to beat the Graleons near the Cape du Ramos, and thereby to release 

 twenty of our People made Prisoners at Angretotte, who were set ashore at 

 Puntegale." 



