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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XL 



appointed him Captain-General of Cape Comorin, a post of 

 great responsibility and danger. He subdued and brought 

 over to the friendship of the state the King of Pored* who for 

 fourteen years was in open rebellion, and as a sign of his 

 reconciliation he gave over two of the enemies' paraos- 

 (a sort of small ships), which were sheltered in his ports. 

 After this he put into the port of Paliacate with the whole 

 of his squadron to give support to the affairs of Cranganor,. 

 which place being in the vicinity of Comorin was trouble- 

 some. There he had many encounters with the Malabars :: 

 but he was victorious in all of them, and prevented the succours 

 the English were trying to give that prince with a powerful 

 armament, and before his very eyes rescued a galeot which 

 was about to surrender, in which was the captain of the 

 fortress of Soar.'f In this action the Englishman, after he 

 had fired all his guns with little loss to us, put out to sea 

 and forsook the friend Constantino had helped to save with 

 all his cargo. He returned to Goa with great glory and 

 triumph, without the loss of a single boat of his own, a 

 rare thing on this coast. 



With equal fortune he navigated the seas all the summer 

 of 1617, without putting in to Cochin, as the other Generals 

 did, by which he avoided many affrays which usually occur 

 between soldiers and the inhabitants in the neighbourhood 

 of that city ; and returning in the winter to Goa, he was 

 employed by the Viceroy with one galley and four sanguiceis,% 

 bringing in from the forts of Canara material and provi- 

 sions for the armament of the city, which, in the opinion of 

 many of the Captains, was an undertaking full of peril to him. 

 For being cast away in the beginning of the winter months, 

 the bars along the coast were closing up and choking up the 



* Porca — Purakkadu, on the coast of Travancore. 



f Soar — Barbosa's Scbkar, near Maskat, a very beautiful town backed by 

 a peak, 1,680 ft. high. 



% Sanquicels — a kind of boat or small vessel used in war. It is a term 

 often used by the Portuguese writers on India. They were light craft to 

 give chase to the prows of the Moors. They darted in and out of the creeks 

 and havens like light-horse. 



