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
Departing from Beth, Nuno appeared with his powerful armament before
Diu. This city is built upon rocks, and is entirely encompassed by rocks
and water. The entrance into the river or haven was shut up by massy
chains suspended upon vessels, behind which eighty vessels were drawn up
full of archers and musqueteers to defend the passage. The garrison
consisted of 10,000 men, with a prodigious number of cannon. On the 16th
of February, the signal was given for the attack, but after fighting the
whole day without gaining any advantage, and having suffered some loss,
it was determined in a council of war to desist from the enterprise as.
impracticable. It was agreed by all, that if so much time had not been
fruitlessly employed in the capture of Beth, Diu must have fallen; as it
had been reinforced only three, days before the arrival of the
Portuguese by a Turk named Mustapha, who was the principal cause of its
brave and effectual resistance. Nuno returned with the principal part of
his fleet and army to Goa, where he arrived on the 15th of March,
leaving Antonio de Saldanna with 60 vessels in the Bay of Cambaya to
annoy the enemy.
After the departure of the Portuguese fleet, Mustapha presented himself
before _Badur_ king of Cambaya, who received him honourably, giving him
the command of _Baroach_ in the Bay of Cambaya, with the title of
Rumi-khan. He was called Kami, as having been born in Greece; as the
Moors of India, being ignorant of the divisions of the European
provinces, call the whole of Thrace, Greece, Sclavonia, and the adjacent
countries by the general name of _Rum,_ and the inhabitants _Rumi_
though that term ought only to be applied to Thrace, the modern
_Romania._ The _Turks_ and _Rumes_ are different nations; the former
being originally from Turkistan, and the natives of Greece and Thrace
consider themselves as of more honourable descent than the Turks[185].
The tide of _Khan_ now bestowed on Mustapha is a dignity among the
Tartars equivalent to that of _Duke_ in Europe, and is bestowed in the
east on persons of distinguished merit.
[Footnote 185: On a former occasion, the name of Kami has been mentioned
as universally given in India to the Turks as coming in place of the
Romans. DeFaria therefore was mistaken in deriving it from the province
of Romania or Thrace.--E.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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