320 



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



[Vol. XX. 



crossed over to Manar in a tone, and thence to the coast of 

 Negapatao, and took his way by land to Goa, and now we 

 shall leave him 1 , to continue with Gonsalo Fernandes, who 

 had left before him. The latter, after he had given word 

 at Manar of the siege, and had left Fernao de Mello pledged 

 to go in succour 2 , crossed over to Negapatao, where he spread 

 the news of the strait in which Columbo was, upon which 

 one Diogo Fernandes Pessoa, a nobleman and worthy knight, 

 bought a galliot and paid twenty -four soldiers ; and filling 

 the ship with provisions and munitions, all with his own 

 money, quickly set out in succour ; and one Antonio de Aguiar 

 de Vasconeellos, envious of him, since matters of this nature 

 greatly ar'ouse friends of honour, took a calemute*, and nego- 

 ciated fifteen soldiers, with whom he set out soon after the 

 other, and even overtook him on the Fishery Coast. And 

 both putting out to sea to cross over to Columbo , there struck 

 them a storm so severe, that they were like to have been lost, 

 whereby Antonio 4 Fernandes Pessoa was driven to Manar, 

 the ship being heavier ; but the calemute of Aguiar went 

 running on ; and the soldiers many times requesting him 

 to run to land, which he did not wish to do, telling them that 

 he had not set out in succoui for the fortress of the king to 

 be stopped from reaching it by any inconvenience : that he 

 would get there or die in the attempt ; and that they could 

 not wish for a more glorious death or a more honoured life ; 

 and so he went passing through that tempest awash and 

 submerged many times, without being put in fear by the 

 danger in which he saw himself so many times ; and God 

 favouring such noble thoughts, he reached Columbo on the 

 same day that Bertolameu Rodrigues left, which was the 

 15th of August, the day of the glorious assumption of our 

 Lady the Virgin. The captain and all the people hastened 

 to the shore to welcome this succour : because it is very 

 natural in all sieges for them to think that in everything that 

 comes to them from without comes their salvation ; and 

 Antonio de Aguiar disembarking, the captain took him and 

 stationed him on a stretch of wall that abuts on the bastion of 

 Sao Sebastiao, it being a very perilous and hazardous place, 

 the which he began to govern and to garrison and fortify 

 very well. 



1 His arrival at Goa is recorded by Couto in chap. x. infra (p. 353). 



2 See supra, p. 305 



3 What kind of vessel this was, I do not know. The word occurs 

 again in X. x. viii. (p. 344) infra : see also Boc. 101. 



4 Both the manuscript and the printed edition read thus, though 

 above they have " Diogo," as also in chapter xi. (p. 357) infra. 



