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.
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