No. 60. — 1908.] cotjto : history of ceylon. 



129 



pressed upon them with great determination, because they 

 received so many accessions that they exceeded eight 

 thousand. 



Our people seeing that it was necessary for them to defend 

 their lives, and that they could not obtain help from any 

 quarter, all did such great things, that words would fail to 

 exaggerate them ; for many times they came to hand-to-hand 

 fighting with the enemy, and yet they always got off with 

 slight wounds, there remaining in their hands on one occasion 

 as prisoner a modeliar, at which Antonio Moniz Barreto was 

 greatly pleased, and ordered him to be brought along in the 

 midst, in order to make use of him when it should be neces- 

 sary. 



From this modeliar he learnt that the enemy intended to 

 attack him at a bridge that was ahead, where all our men 

 were bound to come into their hands, the passage being very 

 narrow. This caused no fear to Antonio Moniz Barreto or to 

 any of the others, except a Galician, who filled with the fear 

 of death and desirous of saving his life he? va making long 

 speeches, and resolved to give himself up $o the enemy ; and 

 as he could do it in no other way, he pretended to be exhausted, 

 letting himself fall on the ground as if dead, and saying that 

 he could go no further. Antonio Moniz Barreto, since he 

 sought not only to escape from the enemy, but also not to 

 lose a single man, went and encouraged the Galician with 

 kind words, telling him that the worst was now past, that 

 God who had delivered them so far would do so for the rest of 

 the way. The Galician replied, that he could go no further 

 either with his arms or without them, and to leave him there 

 to die. Antonio Moniz Barreto made him rise, and took his 

 matchlock from him, and put it on his own shoulder, and like- 

 wise everything else that might encumber him, and placed 

 him in the midst of the soldiers, and made him walk ; but 

 as he already had death pictured in his imagination, causing 

 him great paroxysms of terror, he again fell to the earth, 

 feigning to be dead. Antonio Moniz Barreto, who had kept 

 his eye on him, at once hastened to raise him up, but he 

 refused, saying that he must leave him, that he would not go 

 further. 



Antonio Moniz Barreto, knowing that this was despair 

 begotten of fear, told a soldier to cut off his legs, or to kill him 

 at once, as he did not wish that the enemy should afterwards 

 say that they had captured one of his Portuguese. But when 

 the soldier went to do this, the Galician jumped up as lively 

 and active as if he had never experienced any fatigue, and 

 began to march in the midst of them all. The enemy never 

 left our people, but kept their distance, because the matchlock 



K 36-08 



