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.
