No. 60. — 1908.] cottto : history of oeylon. 



385 



thousand men, and five cities and many towns and villages 

 destroyed, and many ships captured and burnt, and much 

 artillery and goods, and above all his pride, credit, and 

 reputation, which he bore with the neighbouring kings, 

 broken and abated, a thing that he felt most of all. Some 

 persons who have described this siege 1 have added and 

 magnified many things more than took place, thinking that 

 thereby they would gain favour with the captain Joao Correa 

 de Brito, who was such a worthy knight, that he was satisfied 

 only with what in fact occurred. One of these asserts Raju 

 to have lost more than ten thousand men and a large number 

 of prisoners : there were many, but not so many as he has 

 said. On our side during the whole course there died twenty - 

 four Portuguese and eighty lascarins in war, and there were 

 more than five hundred of the wretched country folk that 

 died of disease. 



On the following day, after the retreat of the enemy, Dom 

 Paulo de Lima arrived, and disembarking on land learnt 

 from the captains of the success that had taken place, at 

 which he was extremely rejoiced. And as everything was 

 done, and the weather served for their going to Goa, they 

 considered the providing of that fortress and the garrison 

 that they should leave in it ; because as the enemy was so 

 near, on their turning their backs he might return, and give 

 them trouble once more : wherefore they went on with the 

 demolition of the fillings and bastions, ditches, and all the 

 rest of the enemy's fortifications, all of which formed the 

 structure of a fair-sized city, over which they spent eight 

 days, in which they worked continuously, even to the captains 

 and monks. Joao Correa de Brito had spies in the city of 

 Ceitavaca, who each day advised him of what passed there, 

 and he learnt that Raju was so vexed and ashamed that there 

 was no one that dared to see his face 2 . All having been 

 demolished, and orders given as to other things, they took 

 up the providing of that fortress, and resolved that there 

 should remain six hundred men under the banners of the 

 following captains : — Dom Luis Mascarenhas, Dom Gileanes de 



1 It is tantalizing that Couto does not name these writers, whose 

 descriptions of the siege do not seem to have survived. .Pedro Teixeira, 

 who accompanied Manoel de Sousa Coutinho to Ceylon, gives us no 

 details of the siege or of its raising (see Teix., Introd. ix., 221, 235). 



2 See Linsch. i. 78, ii. 197-8. The Rajavaliya (91-2) gives a very 

 curious story to account for Raja Sinha's retreat, which it attributes 

 to jealousies between the two chief Sinhalese generals, saying nothing 

 of the Portuguese reinforcements. 



2 c 36-08 



