After This Great Victory, We Thought To Have Enjoyed Peace
And Security, But Worse Events Ensued; For The King Of
Cananore, who was
a great friend to the Portuguese, died a few days afterwards, and was
succeeded by a mortal
Enemy to the Christians, and a great friend to the
zamorin, by whole interest he had been advanced to the kingdom of
Cananore. This new king assembled his forces to make war against the
Portuguese in all haste, believing that much of their ammunition had
been expended in the late naval battle, and that their men were much
wearied, and for the most part wounded, so that they would be unable to
make any great resistance. To aid him on this occasion, the zamorin sent
him 24 pieces of great cannon. This war began on the 7th of April, and
continued to the 20th of August [111], before peace was restored. It
were too long to recount all the brave actions performed by the
Christians in this war against the Mahometans [112], who never
encountered them with less than twenty-five or twenty-six thousand men
and 140 pieces of artillery. The enemy on this occasion were armed in
the manner already mentioned respecting the weapons of the inhabitants
of Calicut, and the Christians in the harness and with the weapons then
used by us in Europe[113].
[Footnote 111: From the context, combined with the date of the late
naval action, as given from the History of the Portuguese Transactions,
this land-war with the rajah of Cananore must have been in 1509. - E.]
[Footnote 112: In the naval battle the principal force at least must
have been Mahometans, as the Hindoos do not use the sea; but, in this
land-war with the new rajah of Cananore, the nairs would constitute the
main force of the enemy, though there might be some Mahometan
auxiliaries. - E.]
[Footnote 113: The European soldiers then wore defensive armour and
shields. And besides matchlocks, their offensive arms were pikes,
swords, and cross-bows. - E.]
In their wars, the infidels divide their army into many _wings_, or
brigades, of two or three thousand men each, only one of which proceeds
to battle at a time, all the rest waiting the result of this charge
before they proceed to join battle. While marching to give battle, it
passes all imagination to conceive the prodigious noise made by
innumerable musical instruments after their fashion, which fill the ears
of their soldiers and encourage them to fight; while in the mean time a
great number of men run before with artificial fireworks[114]. At last
they give the onset with such fury and outcry, that two or three
thousand of them are often able to put to flight 10,000 men who are
unused to this mode of warfare. But God in his merciful providence never
forsakes those who believe in his holy religion, as was now exemplified
in our distress. For, while the Portuguese were in a manner overwhelmed
with the multitude of their enemies, the joyful news arrived that a new
fleet had come from Portugal to Cananore, under the valiant knight Don
Tristan de Cunna, who was immediately informed of the straits to which
we were reduced.
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