304 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. XX, 



father Pero Dias, a cleric, a scholarly man 1 , with some 

 companions that he brought, who got into a baloon with 

 some fire-darts and six matchlocks, and they reached the 

 foist, which the enemy were carrying off, and let fly at them 

 in such manner that he set them on fire and burnt them 

 at his will, and made them relinquish the foist ; but because 

 many came to their help, he returned, having caused great 

 havoc among the enemy ; and as the hawsers from the 

 foist had in the other direction been attached to capstans 

 and to many elephants, which hauled on other cables, she 

 was carried away by force, and they made her ride over the 

 top of a ridge of sand, and on the other side she slid into 

 deep water, in which she floated, and so she remained in 

 their power with a falcon and a base and the arms of the 

 soldiers that had been on watch in her. Antonio Colaco, 

 who was on the Calapete side surrounded by Raju's guard, 

 fought with his soldiers like famished lions, causing such 

 havoc among the enemy, that with the death of many he 

 got rid of them, and returned with all his men wounded. 

 The captain Joao Correa, who was ready to hasten where- 

 ever it was necessary, seeing that in that quarter the chief 

 force of the army was occupied, in great haste sent out 

 the lascarins and pachas, and ordered them to attack the 

 arrayal from the other quarter : who did this in such fashion 

 that they killed many, and captured an elephant with which 

 they returned to the fortress, and with several heads in their 

 hands, so that, although the enemy had carried off the foist, 

 and the captain considered it a disgrace, for the present 

 it was tit for tat. In this state things remained for some 

 days, during which there were continual assaults, from which 

 our people returned in safety, and with their swords dyed in 

 blood. 



Dec. X., Bk. x., Chap. i. 



Of what happened in Geilao after the lake was drained : and 

 of the first succour that arrived from outside : and of several 

 assaults that our people made on the enemy : and of the 

 preparations that were made in anticipation of the first attack 

 that Raju determined to make upon the fortress. 



We left the fortress of Columbo with the lake drained, 

 which was what the enemy aimed at, in order to make the 

 assault on that fortress at all parts, it appearing to him that 



1 The printed edition has " a good scholar." How this father came 

 to be in Ceylon, Couto tells us in X. x. iii. (p. 313). 



