No. 39.— 1889.] account of ceylon. 



305 



guese, with long tight sleeves, double hose, white linen 

 stockings, and big collars to their shirts, and straw hats lined 

 with taffeta, and were made to walk along the beach, and 

 wave their hats. The four ships did not think anything else 

 but that the town was still in the possession of their people ; 

 but they very soon learnt the contrary. They made one of 

 their number swim ashore, which art they are very efficient in 

 (they can swim, one, two, three, or four hours in the sea). 

 He did not swim towards the town, but towards Mattavval ; 

 and as a Portuguese who happened to walk from the town 

 along the beach noticed him, and called out to him that the 

 town had surrendered, he quickly turned round and took 

 the news to the ships, who wanted to betake themselves out 

 of the harbour and sail away. Our water-fort in the mean- 

 time had made all preparations, and before the ships could 

 turn, one of them was sunk, another got out of the harbour 

 but was caught by our ships between Golumbo and Negumbo, 

 the other two struck their flags, and the three were brought 

 in ; we soldiers, however, would have preferred to see them 

 escape, because their salt-meat was stinking, and we had to 

 eat it, to our disgust, because all the passes outside were 

 closed, as mentioned before. 



From the time that we conquered Golumbo until 1657, 

 thus more than six months, there was great poverty among 

 us, and we poor wounded felt it particularly, until God 

 helped us so far that we could somewhat recover. It was, 

 however, only on the 18th of August that I had fully 

 recovered, and could do service again ; by the General's 

 order I was quartered in the house of a rich Portuguese for 

 about four months ; there I was well cared for, and could 

 every month save two rixdollars and forty pounds of rice. 



Anno 1657. 



On the 28th of January of the following year, 1657, three 

 of our ships went to Goa to take over the rest of the Portu- 

 guese, and they had orders to remain there until the fleet 

 from Batavia came and brought further orders. 



