A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
After this great victory, Chrisna-rao resumed the siege of Rachol, but
was unable to make any impression on its walls. At this tine one
_Christopher de Figueredo_ came to his camp, attended by twenty other
Portuguese, bringing some Arabian horses for sale to the king. In
discourse with Chrisna-rao respecting the siege, Figueredo asked
permission to view the place, and to try what he could do with his
Portuguese, which was granted. Figueredo gave two assaults, and being
seconded in the latter by the troops of Chrisna-rao, he gained
possession of the place. Soon afterwards, Adel Khan sent an embassy to
Chrisna-rao, begging the restoration of the prisoners and plunder which
had been taken in the late battle and in the captured city. Chrisna-rao
offered to restore the whole, on condition that Adel Khan would
acknowledge his supreme authority, as emperor of Canara, and come to
kiss, his foot in token of submission and vassalage. This degrading
condition was accepted, but its performance was prevented by several
accidents. In the mean while, however, Ruy de Melo, who commanded in
Goa, taking advantage of the declining situation of the affairs of Adel
Khan, possessed himself of those parts of the continent adjoining to the
Isle of Goa, with a force only of 250 horse and 800 Canara foot.
In the same year 1520, Lope de Brito went to succeed Juan de Sylveira in
the command of the fort of Columbo in Ceylon, and carried with him 400
soldiers and many workmen, by whose means he made the fort so strong
that it raised the jealousy of the natives of Columbo, who at the
instigation of the Moors gave over trade with the Portuguese, and
besieged the fort for five months, during which the garrison suffered
great hardships. At length Antonio de Lemos arrived with a reinforcement
of fifty men; with which small additional force Brito ventured to attack
the vast multitude of the enemy, whom he completely routed, and matters
were immediately restored to their former quiet.
On the change of the monsoon, Sequeira set sail from Ormuz and joined
Albuquerque at Muscat, where he found one ship from Lisbon of nine that
sailed together, but all the rest came safe afterwards. One of the ships
of this fleet, while sailing before the wind beyond the Cape of Good
Hope, was stopped all of a sudden. On examining into the cause, it
appeared that a sea monster bore the ship on its back, the tail
appearing about the rudder and the head at the boltsprit, spouting up
streams of water. It was _removed by exorcisms_, no human means being
thought sufficient. By the sailors it was called the _Sambrero_, or the
_hat-fish_, as the head has some resemblance to a hat. A similar fish,
though less, had been seen on the coast of Portugal near _Atouguia_,
where it did much harm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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