No. 42.— 1891,] SIEGE OF COLOMBO. 



93: 



heed should be given by the captains who govern fortified 

 places, principally those beyond the seas, in order that 

 another such event may not happen to them in similar 

 cases) :3 the Captain-General heedlessly and without con- 

 sideration allowed during those two days as many people of 

 the country who dwelt in the seven parishes to enter into the 

 city as there were in the suburbs ; all were useless and of no 

 service. We did not realise this great and culpable careless- 

 ness until the beginning of March, when food became scarce, 

 there having been until then more than enough, and it was 

 sold publicly at a rather higher price 30 than usual, but one 

 that was not exorbitant ; and as it failed suddenly we endea- 

 voured to find a remedy, by driving out of the city at night 

 a large number of those people, [of both sexes] 31 and all 

 ages, on four occasions, from fifteen hundred to two thousand, 

 in order that they might go to the country in the interior ; and 

 as the enemy had guards everywhere, they soon made them 

 turn round and go back towards the city, without allowing 

 any of those miserable creatures to allay the great pangs of 

 hunger which they were suffering, simply in order that we 

 might make an end of consuming [what little there might 

 be], 32 and when they reached the gates of the city we would 

 not allow them in ; and those unhappy ones, seeing that in 

 neither one direction nor the other was there shelter, as the 

 only refuge began to throw themselves into the moats, 

 where, without their continuous cries and groans availing 

 them anything, they all perished. [Of all these people there 

 was left, when we surrendered, nothing but the bones near 

 the lake ; the most horrible sight that could be seen in the 

 world ; nearly all being Christians, brought up amongst us, 

 and living under our protection. 



With famine there also came upon the city a terrible 

 pestilence, not only on the poor, but it also had no respect 

 for the rich and noble : through it some became swollen 

 like those with dropsy, others without pain or illness 

 fell dead. From the 15th of March, 1656, when this disease 

 commenced, until the 20th of April, when the dead were 



