Mahomet on his part was not idle; he solicited the assistance of the Mahometan princes, pressed them with all the motives of religion, and obtained a reinforcement of two thousand musketeers from the Arabs, and a train of artillery from the Turks. Animated with these succours, he marched out of his trenches to enter those of the Portuguese, who received him with the utmost bravery, destroyed prodigious numbers of his men, and made many sallies with great vigour, but losing every day some of their small troops, and most of their officers being killed, it was easy to surround and force them.

Their general had already one arm broken, and his knee shattered with a musket-shot, which made him unable to repair to all those places where his presence was necessary to animate his soldiers. Valour was at length forced to submit to superiority of numbers; the enemy entered the camp and put all to the sword. The general with ten more escaped the slaughter, and by means of their horses retreated to a wood, where they were soon discovered by a detachment sent in search of them, and brought to Mahomet, who was overjoyed to see his most formidable enemy in his power, and ordered him to take care of his uncle and nephew, who were wounded, telling him he should answer for their lives; and, upon their death, taxed him with hastening it. The brave Portuguese made no excuses, but told him he came thither to destroy Mahometans, and not to save them. Mahomet, enraged at this language, ordered a stone to be put on his head, and exposed this great man to the insults and reproaches of the whole army. After this they inflicted various kinds of tortures on him, which he endured with incredible resolution, and without uttering the least complaint, praising the mercy of God who had ordained him to suffer in such a cause.

Mahomet, at last satisfied with cruelty, made an offer of sending him to the viceroy of the Indies, if he would turn Mussulman. The hero took fire at this proposal, and answered with the highest indignation that nothing should make him forsake his heavenly Master to follow an impostor, and continued in the severest terms to vilify their false prophet, till Mahomet struck off his head.

Nor did the resentment of Mahomet end here; he divided his body into quarters, and sent them to different places. The Catholics gathered the remains of this glorious martyr, and interred them. Every Moor that passed by threw a stone upon his grave, and raised in time such a heap, as I found it difficult to remove when I went in search of those precious relics.

What I have here related of the death of Don Christopher de Gama I was told by an old man, who was an eye-witness of it: and there is a tradition in the country that in the place where his head fell, a fountain sprung up of wonderful virtue, which cured many diseases otherwise past remedy.

Mahomet continues the war, and is killed. The stratagem of Peter Leon.

Mahomet, that he might make the best use of his victory, ranged over a great part of Abyssinia in search of the Emperor Claudius, who was then in the kingdom of Dambia. All places submitted to the Mahometan, whose insolence increased every day with his power; and nothing after the defeat of the Portuguese was supposed able to put a stop to the progress of his arms.

The soldiers of Portugal, having lost their chief, resorted to the Emperor, who, though young, promised great things, and told them that since their own general was dead, they would accept of none but himself. He received them with great kindness, and hearing of Don Christopher de Gama's misfortune, could not forbear honouring with some tears the memory of a man who had come so far to his succour, and lost his life in his cause.

(Editor：television)