Xo. 60. — 1908.] couto : history of ceylon. 



305 



it could not escape him, it being very weak at the part that 

 had been surrounded by the lake (which had made it strong) ; 

 and after that they continued making slight assaults here 

 and there, which being of no importance we pass over. And 

 as the reply tarried to the request for succours that he had 

 sent both to the viceroy and to Cochim 1 , and the draining of the 

 lake placed that fortress in need of more men for the defence 

 of that part, the captain-major in great baste dispatched 2 

 Antonio Correa Travacos 3 , magistrate of that fortress, with 

 letters to the viceroy, to represent to him the strait in which 

 they were, who crossed over in a tone to the opposite coast, 

 and took his way by land ; and because Gonsalo Fenian des 

 and Belchior Nogueira, who had gone with the first message, 

 gave it at Manar to Joao de Mello 4 , captain of that fortress 5 , 

 he forthwith fitted out a galliot, in which he ordered to 

 embark his nephew Fernao de Mello with forty soldiers and 

 many munitions, who with great trouble and risk reached 

 Columbo on the eve of St. James the apostle 6 . 



This succour was welcomed, as was natural, it being the 

 first 7 ; and the captain, in order to entertain them well, placed 

 them in a part where the lake was quite dry, because of its 

 being the most hazardous and dangerous , and in honour of the 

 feast of St. James the apostle, and to welcome the new guests ; 



1 See supra, p. 297. 



2 In July 1587 : therefore shortly after the departure of the previous 

 messengers, mentioned below. 



3 Note the Antonio da Costa Travassos mentioned supra p. 221. 

 I do not know when he took up the post of magistrate of Columbo. 



4 Joao de Mello de Sampayo (see supra, p. 83, note 1 ). 



8 From a royal letter of* 12 January 1591, printed in Arch. Port.- 

 Or. iii. (253), it seems that Joao de Mello had neglected to spend on the 

 fortification of Mannar a sum of money that the inhabitants had contri- 

 buted for that purpose — a work which the king had ordered in several 

 previous letters, in one of them (10 January 1587) saying that he had 

 been informed that Raja Sinha's vessels had many times molested it. 

 It also appears that Joao de Mello had been succeeded in the post by 

 Nuno Fernandes de Ataide (c/. supra, p. 227, note 1 ). As Couto 

 mentions in V. i. vii. (p. 83), Joao de Mello was lost at sea in the Bom 

 Jesus on his voyage home in 1592 in company with the late governor of 

 India, Manoel de Sousa Coutinho. Part of the inscribed stone that 

 covered his wife's tomb in Mannar has recently been discovered and 

 rescued from base usage by Mr. J. P. Lewis, C.C.$. (see C. A. S. 

 ill. xviii. 355-8). 



« 24 July 1587. 



7 That is, the first since the dispatch of the three messengers men- 

 tioned above. 



x 36-08 



