Firishta's History (Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī) 143: TOME I. PART I. CHAP. VII.

143

A. D. 1503. Alfonso de Albuquerque reaches India with nine ships. The Zamori attacks the Portuguese at Cochin, with fifty thousand men, both by land and sea. The Indian fleet consists of eighty vessels of all descriptions, carrying three hundred and eighty guns, and four thousand men. Eight boats and thirteen guns are taken by the Portuguese. The Hindoos use more fire-ships on this occasion. They employ floating castles, fifteen feet high, constructed on two boats, each calculated to contain men, and after fighting their way into the midst of the Portuguese fleet, they are converted into fire-ships, and abandoned. Thirteen ships, containing twelve hundred men, arrive from Portugal. Don Alfonso Albuquerque destroys a fleet from Arabia, in which seven hundred Turks lose their lives. He quits India in January, with thirteen vessels, of which three only are of his own fleet, and reaches Lisbon on the 22d of July. (6 months.)