Weary Of
Waiting For The Rest, He Landed His Men, And Gave Orders To Set The Town
On Fire.
At first they were successful in this rash enterprise, as the
ordinary inhabitants were a cowardly unarmed people.
But the garrison of
above two thousand nayres, having assembled on the alarm, attacked Alonso
and his men with great fury and forced them to retreat to their boats,
after killing one man and wounding several others of the party, which only
consisted originally of forty men. Alonso and his soldiers would not have
been able to make good their retreat, if the sailors who remained in
charge of the boats had not fired off a falcon[5], or small piece of
ordnance, on which the nayres gave over the pursuit. By this time day
broke, and Francisco de Albuquerque approached with the rest of the boats;
and seeing the perilous situation of Alonso, he commanded the ordnance in
the boats to be played off against the enemy, on which they fled from the
shore. At this time Pacheco, who was somewhat astern of the rest, observed
a great number of armed nayres marching along a narrow passage to
reinforce the others at the town; and brought his boat so near the pass,
that he completely stopt their passage that way. The whole of our men were
now landed, and soon constrained the enemy to take flight with
considerable loss; after which they set the town on fire, but did not
think it prudent to pursue the runaways, as they were not acquainted with
the country.
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