At Length, Towards The End Of August 1571,
When The Summer Or Fine Weather Had Begun, And When The Enemy
Might
still better have been able to keep the field, and to recommence active
operations, the number of the hostile
Tents could be seen plainly to
decrease, then the cannon were drawn off from the posts of the enemy,
and at last the men entirely disappeared; Adel Khan having abandoned the
siege without coming to any accommodation, after a siege of ten months,
in which he lost 12,000 men, 300 elephants, 4000 horses, and 6000
draught bullocks, partly by the sword and partly by the weather.
Exactly at the same time when Adel Khan invested Goa, Nizam al Mulk sat
down before Chaul. Being suspicious of each other, the two sovereigns
kept time exactly in their preparations, in the commencement of their
march, and in all their subsequent operations. Farete Khan the general
of Nizam al Mulk sat down before Chaul with 8000 horse, 20 elephants and
20,000 foot, on the last day of November 1570, breaking ground with a
prodigious noise of warlike instruments of music. At this time Chaul was
under the command of Luis Fereiyra de Andrada, an officer well deserving
of such a charge, who long laboured under great want of almost every
necessary for conducting the defence, supplying these defects by his own
genius and the valour of his men, till reinforced by Don Francisco
Mascarenhas, who brought him 500 men in four gallies and provisions.
Desirous of distinguishing himself before the arrival of Nizam his
sovereign, Farete Khan resolved upon giving an assault, in which he
employed his elephants with castles on their backs, and with scythes
tied to their trunks. The fight lasted three hours; but the Moors were
repulsed with great slaughter, both by sea and land, and forced to
retire to the church of Madre de Dios. Nothing remarkable happened after
this till the commencement of the year 1571, when some Moors were
observed gathering fruit in an orchard at a short distance from the
garrison, on which Nuno Vello went out against them with only five
soldiers and killed one of the Moors. Both parties were gradually
increased till the enemy amounted to 6000 men, and the Portuguese to
200; but notwithstanding this disparity of force, the Portuguese drove
that vast multitude to flight and slew 180 of them, only losing two of
their own number.
In the beginning of January 1571, Nizam al Mulk came before Chaul with
his whole army, now consisting of 34,000 horse, 100,000 infantry, 16,000
pioneers, 4000 smiths, masons, carpenters, and other trades, and of
sundry different nations, as Turks, Chorassans, Persians, and
Ethiopians, with 360 elephants, an infinite number of buffaloes and
bullocks, and 40 pieces of cannon, mostly of prodigious size, some of
which carried balls of 100, some of 200, and some even of 300 pounds
weight. These cannon had all appropriate names, as the cruel, the
butcher, the devourer, the furious, and the like[378]. Thus an army of
150,000 men sat down to besiege a town that was defended merely by a
single wall, a fort not much larger than a house, and a handful of men.
Farete Khan took up his quarters near the church of Madre de Dios with
7000 horse and 20 elephants; Agalas Khan in, the house of Juan Lopez
with 6000 horse; Ximiri Khan between that and upper Chaul with 2000
horse; so that the city was beset from sea to sea. The Nizam encamped
with the main body, of the army at the farther end of the town, where
the ground was covered with tents for the space of two leagues; and 5000
horse were detached to ravage the district of Basseen.
[Footnote 378: These names are of course to be considered as
translations of the native or Persian names. That named the furious in
the text, is called the Orlando furioso in the translation of De Faria
by Stevens; but it is not easy to guess how the subjects of the Nizam
should have known any thing of that hero of Christian romance. - E.]
At the commencement of the siege the Portuguese garrison was a mere
handful of men, and the works being very slight no particular posts were
assigned, all acting wherever their services were most wanted. Soon
afterwards, the news of the siege having spread abroad, many officers
and gentlemen flocked thither with reinforcements, so that in a short
time the garrison was augmented to 2000 men. It was then resolved to
maintain particular points besides the general circuit of the walls. The
monastery of St Francis was committed to the charge of Alexander de
Sousa; Nunno Alvarez Pereyra was entrusted to defend some houses near
the shore; those between the Misericordia and the church of St Dominic
were confided to Gonzalo de Menezes; others in that neighbourhood to
Nuno Vello Perreyra; and so in other places. In the mean while it was
generally recommended at Goa that Chaul ought to be abandoned, but the
viceroy thought otherwise, in which opinion he was only seconded by
Ferdinand de Castellobranco, and he immediately sent succours under
Ferdinand Tellez and Duarte de Lima. Before their arrival, Zimiri Khan,
who had promised the Nizam that he would be the first person to enter
Chaul, vigorously assaulted the ports of Henry De Betancour and
Ferdinand de Miranda, who resisted him with great gallantry, and on
receiving reinforcements repulsed him with the slaughter of 300 of his
men, losing seven on their side.
The enemy erected a battery against the monastery of St Francis where
the Portuguese had some cannon; and as the gunners on both sides used
their utmost endeavour to burst or dismount the opposite guns, the
bullets were sometimes seen to meet by the way. On the eve of St
Sebastian, the Portuguese made a sally upon some houses which were
occupied by the Moors, and slew a great number of them without the loss
of one man.
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