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.

[Footnote 378:  These names are of course to be considered as translations of the native or Persian names.  That named the furious in the text, is called the Orlando furioso in the translation of De Faria by Stevens; but it is not easy to guess how the subjects of the Nizam should have known any thing of that hero of Christian romance.—­E.]

At the commencement of the siege the Portuguese garrison was a mere handful of men, and the works being very slight no particular posts were assigned, all acting wherever their services were most wanted.  Soon afterwards, the news of the siege having spread abroad, many officers and gentlemen flocked thither with reinforcements, so that in a short time the garrison was augmented to 2000 men.  It was then resolved to maintain particular points besides the general circuit of the walls.  The monastery of St Francis was committed to the charge of Alexander de Sousa; Nunno Alvarez Pereyra was entrusted to defend some houses near the shore; those between the Misericordia and the church of St Dominic were confided to Gonzalo de Menezes; others in that neighbourhood to Nuno Vello Perreyra;