NO. 42.-1891.] SIEGE OF COLOMBO. 



95 



failed her ; and it appearing to her that without doubt it 

 would die, this wretched creature, entertaining these thoughts, 

 desired to make use of it for her sustenance. Putting this 

 into execution, she cut its throat, and having cut it open for 

 the purpose of disembowelling it, there came a neighbour 

 into her house, who happened to be wanting a light, and 

 wondering at what she saw asked her what she was doing 

 with her child ; £and as the robber, who is generally 

 found with the stolen article in his hand, gives no other 

 excuse than that of necessity, so did] this poor woman, C an( 13 

 confessed unreservedly : the neighbour horrified ran out of 

 the house, and made the matter public, of which word was 

 soon brought to the Captain-General, who with all brevity 

 ordered an adjutant to seize her, and to take her to the 

 bastion of Mapane, where he was to have her tied to the mouth 

 of a gun. CThis even t became known throughout all the 

 city, and the punishment which she had been ordered to 

 undergo,]] upon which several kind-hearted monks came, and 

 by reasoning persuaded the Captain-General to remit the 

 punishment, saying that that woman could suffer none 

 greater than that of being obliged by hunger to kill her own 

 son, the greatest misery of this life, £and one so repugnant 

 to nature itself ; whereupon he hushed up the matter, in order 

 not to set a bad example in such a time of distress : several 

 similar cases, when that became known, followed in that 

 distress ; however, I relate only that which I know for 

 certain. 



The enemy continued incessantly with their batteries, 

 bombarding the bastion of S. Joao alone with six, as I have 

 said, some of them of eight demi-cannon, and at the Porta da 

 Rainha they had the one with which they had razed the 

 portion of the wall which has been referred to. At this 

 place, on the 4th of May, they had completed another of six, 

 and that night they were to place artillery in it, in order 

 therewith to raze the bastion of S. Sebastiao, which being- 

 limited and much ruined they could do without much 

 trouble. In the city and siege there happened to be a monk 



