322 



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



[Vol XX. 



There signalized himself in this assault a soldier, Joseph 

 Fernandes by name, who with a fire-lance was the foremost 

 that entered the tranqueira and made a way for the rest ; and 

 after the lance was exhausted he attacked the enemy with his 

 arms, because he was very strong ; and when he got hold of one 

 he threw him behind to his comrades, who killed him, and 

 thus he did to many. And whilst about this he received eight 

 wounds, one of them mortal ; and having retired from there, 

 after getting outside he missed his hat and a handkerchief 

 with nine budgrooks 1 tied up in it, which appears to have been 

 his whole capital, which he had left in the tranqueira, and 

 wished to return to seek it ; but could not because he was 

 streaming with blood all over. This was a deed from which 

 he should have been given for each budgrook many cruzados ; 

 but he was left without these and without the budgrooks ; 

 and if he lived afterwards (which we do not know 2 ) , perad- 

 venture he may have died of hunger, and his name would 

 never have been known ; but it must be placed in this 

 writing, and also all the rest of this nature, albeit the 

 favours of time should deny them the reward of their merits. 

 And peradventure that by the neglect of some, if a small 

 deed of this sort had been performed by some relative or 

 connection, it would have been necessary to extol it with 

 signal favours, which at last have an eternal limit with life ; 

 but these who are thus forgotten and despised by the world, 

 in which such famous deeds have become blotted out for lack 

 of favours, these shall never be so in my writing, without being 

 given the limited reward, but a fame without end, and which 

 will endure as long as the world shall be. 



And returning to our subject, Raju was exceedingly in- 

 censed at this success, and did not fail to seek for every method 

 and stratagem in order to obtain his revenge, and to see if he 

 could not get the fortress into his hands, and commanded at 

 once to excavate a mine from his tranqueira to the bastion of 

 Sao Sebastiao, of the depth of a fathom ; and in carrying it 

 forward they came upon two ponds of water that were on 

 each side, wherefore he brought it out above the ground 

 twenty paces from the bastion, where he built another tran- 

 queira of wood very strong and with fillings, the structure of 

 which was below the mines, on account of the artillery, that 

 it should do no harm to his fortress 3 . 



1 A coin of low value (see Hob.- Job. s.v.). 



2 A curious statement, after informing us that he was mortally 

 wounded ! 



3 The description is not very intelligible. We shall return to this 

 mine in chap. vii. infra (p. 336). 



