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[Vol. XX. 



dangers 1 . In this carnage that day passed, and others fol- 

 lowing, without their allowing our people to take a moment's 

 rest, because neither by day nor by night did they take their 

 hands from their arms, eating very little, and sleeping less. 

 And the most wonderful thing, on which I should like to spend 

 many quires of paper, is, that the greater part, or almost all, 

 of these people of ours were soldiers from Antre Douro e 

 Minho, from Beira, and from Tras os Montes 2 , unknown men, 

 without usurped titles, but brought up poor and rustically, 

 badly clad, and worse laced. But certainly of them it could be 

 said, as was once said of Caesar, that one should beware of that 

 ill girt youth. So of these our Portuguese, in whom the fault 

 of blood concealed the great valour of the spirit, it could be 

 said : " Beware of those tatterdemallions, and of those rusty 

 swords , for there go other Caesars." And so you would see one of 

 these set face to face against many foes, and cutting them down 

 with such valour and spirit that it would affright you and 

 cause you the greatest astonishment, and standing up to a wild 

 elephant that would make a whole army fall back, and making 

 it turn round, as if he were another beast wilder and more 

 ferocious than it. And these of whom I speak are those 

 that in India accomplished most of the dangerous feats 

 that were undertaken there ; and those that in this island of 

 Ceilao maintained this and other sieges, of which many 

 writings could be made, if time or neglect had not buried the 

 names, and with them the deeds. 



1 The Historia Serafica (iii. 539) says : — " In these straits the 

 Franciscan friars were always seen in the greatest perils. On one 

 occasion, the Portuguese having sallied forth to repel the onset of the 

 enemy, over whom they gained the victory, they left dead on the field 

 for the confession of the faith two very earnest monks, Fr. Luis do 

 Amaral speared, and Fr. Martinho da Guarda, the second of the name, 

 who was dragged along after an elephant. The Malavares, who at 

 this time were cruising along the coast in succour of Madune, captured 

 a friar Leygo, who was coming as sacristan of our convent in Columbo, 

 and having carried him to Negumbo accorded him a most cruel death, 

 In another encounter of the Portuguese with the troops of Raju in the 

 meadows of Calane, the former beginning to break their ranks by reason 

 of the impetus that pressed upon them, the father Fr. Joao Calvo took 

 a crucifix in his hands, and on the part of his Lord commanded the 

 elephants to proceed no further with their havoc. A fact to be won- 

 dered at ! The brutes remained immovable at the impulses of the 

 divine virtue, and the heathens so dumbfoundered at the novelty, that 

 our men had the opportunity of retiring from their fury." 



2 The northernmost parts of Portugal, inhabited by the least warlike 

 of the population. 



