Indian Antiquary Vol 31

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 17

JANDARY, 1902) LETTERS FROM PORUGUESE CAPTIVES IN CANTON.
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they took us to the house of the anchugi. There they knocked off our fetters and put on us other stronger obains, on our legs riveted fetters and chains on our necks; and from there they sent us to this prison. At the entrance to the prison Antonio d'Almeida died from the heavy fetters that we bore, our arms swollen, and our legs cut by the tight chains. This, with a decision that two days afterwards they would kill us. Before it was night they pat others once more on Thome Pirez and conducted him alone barefoot and without a cap amid the hootings of boys to the prison of the Canoheufue in order to see the goods that they had taken from us which had to be described ; and the mandarin clerks who were present wrote down ten and stole three hundred. The pochăgy and anchuci proceeded to say to a mandarin named Ceuhi that, since the Portuguese had entered the Island and because he was of opinion regarding us that we had come to spy out the country and that we were 'robbers, we should at once die. The ceuhi replied :-" You want to put an end to all these, who are on an embassy, it may be true or false. Order their (f. 207] fetters to be struck off impiediately. I shall write to the king; and it shall be done according to his wish." On the following day they struck off our fetters, which if we had borne a day longer we should all have died; and they brought Thome Pirez back once more to this prison.
The goods that they took from us were twenty quintals of rhabarb, one thousand five hundred or six hundred rich pieces of silk, a matter of four thousand silk handkerchiefs which the Chinese call zopas of Naquim, and many fans, and also three arrobas of musk in powder, three thousand and odd cods of musk,61 four thonsand five hundred taels of silver and seventy or eighty taels of gold and other pieces of silver, and all the clothes, pieces of value, both Portuguese and those of China, the putchuks of Jorge Botelho, incense, benjamin, tortoise-shells, albo pepper and other trifles. These were delivered into the factory of the Caucheufo as the property of robbers. The presout of our lord, the king which he sent to the king of China is in the factory of the pookuncy. The substance of the pieces and how many and of what kind I do not remember well : however, the sum is over one thousand five hundred; because they carried off the inventory with other papers of import. ance and the obosts of clothes which they took and put with the goods.53
From the ship of Diogo Calvo there remained the following persons :- Vasco Calvo, Estevão Fernandez the clerk, Agostinho Fernandez the master, Simão Luis the steward, João d'Alanquer, João Fernandez, Diogo da Ilha of the master, and sailors Antonio Alvarez and four lads - João Fernandez a Guzarati, Pedro a Javanese of the master, Gaspar of Estevão Fernandez, Gonçalo of Vasco Calvo ; and because they were known in Cantão and said that they belonged to the embassy they escaped ; the others were all seized and put into this prison. Some of them died of hunger and some were strangled. Simão the interpreter and the Balante Alli were imprisoned ; and. Alli died here in this prison : they struck him on the head with a mallet, and so they killed him ; (f. 107] Simio Baralante who was in the Chichefu died of beatings; - having already ropes on their necks : with soven hundred who died thus, The Portuguese, and the goods and cannon that they had with them, all were plundered, except it was for the king. The supply of ship's fittings that Vasco Calvo had, all was plundered by the oonoongepaçis who went to Pequim, so that nothing was left.
Bertholomeu Soares who was in Patane, Lopo de Goes in Syon,so Vicente57 Alvarez & servant of Simão d'Andrade, and the Father Mergulh&o who was in Syon, came in the year 1621 ; and Diogo Calvo being in the port of trade the fleet of the Chinese attacked them, because ** Read anchaçi.
" Kwangobau-fu, the Chinese name of Canton. # The orig. adds "curi laldes," which I cannot explain. 4° Chinese show-pa, handkerobiot. Road Naquim.
61 Orig., Papou dalmi scare. See Now Eng. Dict, .. . ' Cod' ; And of. Gaspar da Crus in Parches, Pily. III. p. 169; Gonsales de Mondos, Hist. de la China, Hak. Soc. trad., I. p. 18. See Hobson Jobson, ... 'Patohook.'
65 Cf. Barros, Deo. III. VI. ii. M I have made the best senso I could of the original of the foregoing passage. I think all for 'Al) must be bore proper name, and not the Portuguese adverb of place. I am not sure if balanto and baralante refer to the me person. The word balante means "bloating." and was applied by the Portuguese to a negro tribe in West Afrios " See Introd.
Siam. " Barros, ip quoting from this pamago (Des. III., VI. ii.), calls this man Vasco Alvaros.