Both He And The
King Were Desirous Of Peace, But Both Endeavoured To Conceal Their
Wishes; The Viceroy Giving Out That He Cared Not How Long The King
Continued The Siege, And The King Pretending That He Would Persevere
Till He Gained The Place.
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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 688 of 809
Words from 187953 to 188285
of 221361
