The lord of Repelim was much grieved at the destruction of his towns; and being afraid of our people making an attack on another about a league farther up the river, he sent a strong detachment of his nayres for its security. The generals, however, resolved to follow up their victory, and to do all the evil in their power to the territories of this lord. For this purpose, after allowing their men some time for rest, they departed about midnight, while it was still so dark that they could not see each other in the boats, expecting to come upon their enemies by surprise by dawn of next morning. The boats in which Alonso de Albuquerque and his party were embarked got considerably a-head of the rest, and arrived at the town which it was intended to attack a good while before day. Weary of waiting for the rest, he landed his men, and gave orders to set the town on fire. At first they were successful in this rash enterprise, as the ordinary inhabitants were a cowardly unarmed people. But the garrison of above two thousand nayres, having assembled on the alarm, attacked Alonso and his men with great fury and forced them to retreat to their boats, after killing one man and wounding several others of the party, which only consisted originally of forty men. Alonso and his soldiers would not have been able to make good their retreat, if the sailors who remained in charge of the boats had not fired off a falcon524, or small piece of ordnance, on which the nayres gave over the pursuit. By this time day broke, and Francisco de Albuquerque approached with the rest of the boats; and seeing the perilous situation of Alonso, he commanded the ordnance in the boats to be played off against the enemy, on which they fled from the shore. At this time Pacheco, who was somewhat astern of the rest, observed a great number of armed nayres marching along a narrow passage to reinforce the others at the town; and brought his boat so near the pass, that he completely stopt their passage that way. The whole of our men were now landed, and soon constrained the enemy to take flight with considerable loss; after which they set the town on fire, but did not think it prudent to pursue the runaways, as they were not acquainted with the country.

After this exploit, Duarte Pacheco and Pedro de Tayde went with their divisions to destroy another town at some distance, in their way towards which they fought and defeated eighteen paraws belonging to the zamorin, and then set the town on fire. From thence they stood over to the island of Cambalan, the caymal of which was an enemy of the Cochin rajah, where they destroyed a large town. From that place, Pacheco went with five armed paraws of Cochin to burn another town, where he met with considerable resistance, and slew a great number of the enemy, seven of his own people being wounded. After setting the town on fire, he retired towards Cochin, and was forced to fight with thirteen armed paraws of Calicut, which he defeated with the assistance of Pedro de Tayde and Antonio del Campo, who fortunately joined him in this emergency. On their defeat, the Calient paraws retired into a creek, where one of them ran aground and was taken by Pacheco; but our men being worn out with hard rowing, were unable to pursue the rest, and returned to Cochin. On receiving an account of these transactions, the rajah was much satisfied with the revenge which had been taken of his enemies, and requested of our generals to discontinue the war, to which, however, they were by no means inclined.

On account of the war, no pepper was brought from the country to sell at the factory in Cochin, neither dared the merchants to go out in search of that commodity, insomuch that the factory had only been able to procure 300 bahars525, and the factor requested the generals to go in quest of some which was to be procured at a place about nine leagues from Cochin. For this purpose the two generals and all their captains set out from Cochin under night, that their intentions might not be discovered by the enemy. On the way Pacheco destroyed a whole island, in which he fought against six thousand of the enemy with his own company only, and the two generals put thirty-four paraws to flight. After this Pacheco and del Campo destroyed a town on the continent, where they defeated two thousand nayres, many of whom were slain, without any loss on their side. After this, the generals sent on the tony526 for the pepper, which carried such merchandize as was meant to be given in exchange; and for its protection Pacheco and three other captains accompanied it with two hundred men, and five hundred Cochin paraws527. In passing a narrow strait or river, our people were assailed from the banks by a vast number of the natives armed with bows and arrows, but were defended by their targets, which were fixed on the gunwales of their boats. Leaving one of his captains with fifty Portuguese t protect the tony, Pacheco with the other two captains and the troops belonging to the rajah, made towards the shore, firing off his falcons against the enemy, whom he forced to quit the shore with much loss; after which he landed with his troops, most of whom were armed with hand-guns. The enemy, who were full two thousand strong, resisted for a quarter of an hour, but at length took to flight after having many slain. Pacheco pursued them to a village, where the fugitives rallied and were joined by many nayres, insomuch that they now amounted to six thousand men, and our people were in great jeopardy, as the enemy endeavoured to surround them, and to intercept their return to the boats. But our men defended themselves manfully, and fought their way back to the shore, where the natives divided on each hand, being afraid of the shot of the falcons, which slew great numbers of them, and our men re-embarked without having a single man killed or wounded.

The zamorin was much displeased at the successes of our people against his confederates, and by the loss of many of his paraws in these several actions, and was even afraid lest the Portuguese might eventually dispossess him of his dominions. He used every exertion therefore to prevent us from procuring pepper, being in hopes, if our ships were constrained to return to Portugal without loading, that they would come no more back to India. He used his influence therefore even with the merchants of Cochin to refuse supplying pepper to our ships, which they did so effectually, under pretence of the war, that, in spite of the influence of the rajah, and notwithstanding high offers of reward from Francisco de Albuquerque, the factory had only been able to procure 1200 quintals or 4000 bahars528 of pepper; and even that was got with hard fighting, some hurt to our own men, and infinite loss of lives to the enemy. Unable to procure any more pepper in Cochin, Alonso de Albuquerque went to Coulan in search of that commodity, accompanied by Pedro de Tayde and Antonio del Campo, knowing that the government of that state was desirous of having one of our factories established in their city, and had solicited both Pedro Alvares Cabral and the lord admiral De Gama to that effect; and Alonso was determined to go to war with the people of Coulan unless they gave him loading for his ships.

Coulan is twelve leagues from Cochin, and twenty-four from Cape Comorin. Before the building of Calicut, Coulan was the principal city of Malabar, and the port of greatest trade on that coast. Its buildings, more especially the temples and shrines of their idols, are larger and more splendid than those of Cochin. The haven is excellent, the country is well stored with provisions, and the condition of the people resembles in all things what has been formerly said of the inhabitants of Calicut. The inhabitants are idolatrous Malabars, having among them many rich Moorish merchants, more especially since the war broke out between us and the zamorin, as many of these merchants had left Calicut to reside at Coulan. They trade with Coromandel, Ceylon, the Maldive islands, Bengal, Pegu, Camatia, and Malava. The rajah or king of this state rules over an extensive kingdom, in which there are many rich cities and several good harbours; by which means he has a large revenue, and is able to maintain a great military force, but the men are mostly of a low stature: He entertains in his palace a guard of three hundred women, armed with bows and arrows, who are very expert archers, and they bind up their breasts very tight with bandages of silk and linen, that they may not stand in the way of using their bows. This rajah usually resides in a city named Calle, and is generally at war with the king of Narsinga529.