On The 16th
Of February, The Signal Was Given For The Attack, But After Fighting The
Whole Day Without Gaining Any Advantage, And Having Suffered Some Loss,
It Was Determined In A Council Of War To Desist From The Enterprise As.
Impracticable.
It was agreed by all, that if so much time had not been
fruitlessly employed in the capture of
Beth, Diu must have fallen; as it
had been reinforced only three, days before the arrival of the
Portuguese by a Turk named Mustapha, who was the principal cause of its
brave and effectual resistance. Nuno returned with the principal part of
his fleet and army to Goa, where he arrived on the 15th of March,
leaving Antonio de Saldanna with 60 vessels in the Bay of Cambaya to
annoy the enemy.
After the departure of the Portuguese fleet, Mustapha presented himself
before Badur king of Cambaya, who received him honourably, giving him
the command of Baroach in the Bay of Cambaya, with the title of
Rumi-khan. He was called Kami, as having been born in Greece; as the
Moors of India, being ignorant of the divisions of the European
provinces, call the whole of Thrace, Greece, Sclavonia, and the adjacent
countries by the general name of Rum, and the inhabitants Rumi
though that term ought only to be applied to Thrace, the modern
Romania. The Turks and Rumes are different nations; the former
being originally from Turkistan, and the natives of Greece and Thrace
consider themselves as of more honourable descent than the Turks[185].
The tide of Khan now bestowed on Mustapha is a dignity among the
Tartars equivalent to that of Duke in Europe, and is bestowed in the
east on persons of distinguished merit.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 355 of 809
Words from 96720 to 97009
of 221361
