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



319 



Raju, incensed at the result, determined to place the city 

 in such straits and to weary our people in such fashion as to 

 reduce them to desperation, and at once in great haste com- 

 manded the tranqueiras to be carried on to quite close to 

 the walls of the city ; and at their angles he caused to be 

 erected some wooden bastions so high that they reached to 

 the artillery of the bastions that looked towards that side, 

 and proceeded with some fillings in the place occupied by the 

 lake 1 , and commanded to make a summoning of men through- 

 out the whole island, and to bring more material, as he was 

 determined to get close up to the walls, in order that they 

 might be able from their entrenchments to pass to them. 



The captain, who was not neglectful of the matters of his 

 duty, ordered the bastions and other most necessary parts 

 to be repaired ; and on that of Sao Miguel, it being lower, 

 and the enemy having their eye upon it, he ordered to make 

 a wooden story with the beams of thick palm-trees, and 

 ordered the embrasures to be filled in and stopped up 2 , be- 

 cause they were occupied by soldiers of whom he had need 

 above ; and around the story that he erected he made plat- 

 forms and parapets for our men to fight more under cover ; 

 and in the story he placed some falcons and bases in order to 

 play upon the island that had been abandoned, on which 

 the enemy went on fortifying themselves, so that they might 

 hinder them in that work ; and as the bastion of Sao Gonsalo 

 was also very low, he raised the parapets, and filled it up in 

 such manner that now it was more defensible ; and from the 

 bastion of Sancto Estevao as far as the watch-tower of Manoel 

 Borges 3 he ordered to be dug on the outer side a ditch three 

 spans in width and two fathoms in depth, so that the ele- 

 phants could not come near to the wall , which was of mud. 



And because word of the succours that he had sent to ask 

 for tarried, he again dispatched 4 one Bertolameu Rodrigues 

 with letters to the viceroy, in which he gave him news of the 

 combat, and sent him a plan of it, with the whole army of 

 the enemy, and the mode of his fortifications 5 , so that thereby 

 he might see the need in which Columbo was. This man 



1 I am not sure of the exact meaning here. 



2 The printed edition omits " and stopped up." 



:! In the list of bastions and watch-towers given on p. 293-7 supra, 

 this watch-tower is not mentioned ; and I am uncertain regarding its 

 position (see infra, p. 338, note 1 ). 



4 On 15 August 1587, as is stated further on. 



5 This plan, were it still extant (which is not probable), would be of 

 the utmost value in elucidating Couto's somewhat obscure and confused 

 account of the siege. 



