No. 60. — 1908.] couto : history of cbylon. 



343 



Dec. X., Bk. x , Chap. viii. 



Of some more succours that left for Ceilad : and of how Philippe 

 de Carvalho went in succour in a provision ship : and of how 

 Thome de Sousa de Arronches fought with Raju's armada , 

 and of what happened to it. 



Upon the arrival at Goa of the news of the jeopardy of the 

 fortress of Columbo, after Bernardim de Carvalho had left 1 , 

 some volunteers arranged to go in succour : and the first that 

 left was Antonio de Brito 2 in a galliot with soldier friends, 

 whom he sought out for that purpose, and he went pursuing 

 his journey, to whom we shall return later on 3 . The viceroy 

 caused haste to be made with a ship that he had freighted to 

 carry provisions to that fortress 4 , in which he ordered to be 

 embarked four hundred quandis of rice , one hundred of wheat , 

 five thousand five hundred parddos in money, many munitions, 

 balls, powder, fire-pots, and fire-lances, and all other warlike 

 stores, and the captaincy of this ship he gave to Felipe de 

 Carvalho de Vasconcelos, a fidalgo, who had been granted those 

 captaincies of voyages : and he accepted this one on account 

 of its being to the service of the king to go in succour to that 

 fortress ; and the viceroy gave him fifty soldiers, and made 

 them set sail at the end of September ; and whilst he is on the 

 way 5 we shall treat of the things that during this time occurred 

 in Ceilao. 



Rajii, exasperated at the past successes, was seeking every 

 means of getting satisfaction and of injuring our people, even 

 to wishing to use poison and charms for that purpose : wherefore 

 he sent out some Chingalas, who were great sorcerers, like run- 

 aways, who came to Columbo, and represented themselves as 

 greatly exasperated with and fearful of Raju ; and in some 

 questions that the captain put to them they so contradicted 

 themselves, that he considered them suspicious, and ordered 

 them to be put to the torture, in which they confessed the 

 truth, and were put to death and executed 6 : and in this 



1 See supra, pp. 333-4. 

 ' 2 'The manuscript adds " do brago," evidently for " do braco cortado," 

 and apparently this is the same man that is mentioned in X. iv. v. 

 (p. 264) supra, as captain of the pro vision galleon to Ceylon in 1583. 



3 See infra, p. 349. 



4 See supra, p. 334. 



6 Couto returns to him in the next chapter (see p. 350). 



6 What these apparently tautologica.1 statements are intended to 

 convey, I do not know. Faria y Sousa, in his summary of Couto's 

 narrative, says {Asia Port. III. I. vi. 12) that the enchanters were 

 strangled (ahogados, which Stevens in his translation renders "drowned"). 



