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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XII. 



buried, there were counted twenty-two thousand and thirty 

 persons ; and it is not to be wondered at, for there were 

 households that numbered sixty, and those that were small 

 had twelve or fifteen. Thenceforward whoever buried the 

 dead died : and such was the horror and misery, that all 

 wished themselves buried ; for few as were the soldiers left 

 there was not enough to satisfy their hunger. Many people 

 went about the streets begging for the love of God that 

 someone would give them a little hot water ; for they knew 

 well that with nothing else could they get relief. On account 

 of these insupportable miseries, a hundred and twenty 

 soldiers deserted from us to the enemy, among them some 

 who guarded posts. These gave them true information of 

 the strait in which we were ; and as what they heard appeared 

 to them impossible, they gave it no credit, and also because 

 it was the statement of men who wished to justify their bad 

 behaviour : and in truth there was much more that they 

 might have told. God permitted by his just judgments 

 that, while it rains in the Island two or three times a day, 

 it being very near the equinoctial, the whole time that the 

 siege lasted it did not rain, and caused such heat that even 

 with shoes on it was impossible to go along the streets, 

 which were covered with corpses swarming with noxious 

 flies, which caused a horrible stench. Dogs were slaugh- 

 tered publicly, and he who managed to get a pound thought 

 it great luck. The elephants that died were eaten even to 

 their skins ; and in order to get a chance of this, some were 

 killed secretly ; and of fifteen that there were, which were 

 used by us, only Ortela escaped on account of the affection 

 that all had for him : 33 in the same manner also not an 

 unclean animal escaped which was not eaten. In the case 

 of several honoured Portuguese families the whole of the 

 members were found dead in their own houses.] 



A woman, a native of the country, £ whose husband the 

 enemy had killed,] finding herself constrained by the need 

 from which all were suffering, and having a little one at the 

 breast, her own child, whom she was nourishing, her milk 



