Camoens, Louis de, a famous Portuguese poet, the honour of whose birth is claimed by different cities. But according to N. Antonio, and Manual Correa, his intimate friend, this event happened at Lisbon in 1572. His family was of considerable note, and originally Spanish. In 1570, Vasco Perez de Caamans, disgusted at the court of Castile, fled to that of Lisbon, where King Ferdinand immediately admitted him into his council, and gave him the lordships of Sardoal, Punete, Marano, Amendo, and other considerable lands; a certain proof of the eminence of his rank and abilities. In the war for the succession, which broke out on the death of Ferdinand, Camoens sided with the king of Castile, and was killed in the battle of Aljubarota. But though John I. the victor, seized a great part of his estate, his widow, the daughter of Goncalo Terreyro, grand master of the order of Christ, and general of the Portuguese army, was not reduced beneath her rank. She had three sons, who took the name of Caamans. The family of the eldest intermarried with the first nobility of Portugal; and even, according to Castera, with the blood royal. But the family of the second brother, whose fortune was slender, had the superior honour to produce the author of the Lusiad.

Early in his life the misfortunes of the poet began. In his infancy, Simon Vaz de Caamans, his father, commander of a vessel, was shipwrecked at Goa, where, with his life, the greatest part of his fortune was lost. His mother, however, Anne de Macedo of Santarene, provided for the education of her son Louis at the university of Coimbra. What he acquired there, his works discover; an intimacy with the classics, equal to that of a Scaliger, but directed by the taste of a Milton or a Pope.

When he left the university, he appeared at court. He was handsome; had speaking eyes, it is said, and the finest complexion. Certain it is, however, he was a polished scholar, which, added to the natural ardour and gay vivacity of his disposition, rendered him an accomplished gentleman. Courts are the scenes of intrigue; and intrigue was fashionable at Lisbon. But the particulars of the amours of Caamans rest unknown. This only appears; he had aspired above his rank, for he was banished from the court; and in several of his sonnets he ascribes this misfortune to love.

He now retired to his mother's friends at Santarene. Here he renewed his studies, and began his poem on the discovery of India. John III. at this time prepared an armament against Africa. Caamans, tired of his inactive obscure life, went to Ceuta in this expedition, and greatly distinguished his valour in several encounters. In a naval engagement with the Moors in the straits of Gibraltar, in the conflict of boarding, he was among the foremost, and lost his right eye. Yet neither hurry of actual service nor the dissipation of the camp could stifle his genius. He continued his Lusidas, and several of his most beautiful sonnets were written in Africa, while, as he expressed it,

One hand the pen, and one the sword, employ'd.

The fame of his valour had now reached the court, and he obtained permission to return to Lisbon. But, while he solicited an establishment which he had merited in the ranks of battle, the malignity of evil tongues, as he calls it in one of his letters, was injuriously poured upon him. Though the bloom of his early youth was effaced by several years residence under the scorching heavens of Africa, and though altered by the loss of an eye, his presence gave uneasiness to the gentlemen of some families of the first rank where he had formerly visited. Jealousy is the characteristic of the Spaniards and Portuguese; its resentment knows no bounds, and Caamans now found it prudent to banish himself from his native country. Accordingly, in 1553, he sailed for India, with a resolution never to return. As the ship left the Tagus, he exclaimed, in the words of the sepulchral monument of Scipio Africanus, Ingrata patria, non possidebis osea mea! "Ungrateful country, thou shalt not possess my bones!" But he knew not what evils in the east would awake the remembrance of his native fields.

When Camoens arrived in India, an expedition was ready to sail to revenge the king of Cochin on the king of Pimenta. Without any rest on shore after his long voyage, he joined this armament, and in the conquest of the Alagada islands displayed his usual bravery.

In the year following, he attended Manuel de Vasconcello in an expedition to the Red sea. Here, says Faria, as Camoens had no use for his sword, he employed his pen. Nor was his activity confined to the fleet or camp. He visited Mount Felix and the adjacent inhospitable regions of Africa, which he so strongly pictures in the Lusiad, and in one of his little pieces where he laments the absence of his mistress.

When he returned to Goa, he enjoyed a tranquillity which enabled him to bestow his attention on his epic poem. But this serenity was interrupted perhaps by his own imprudence. He wrote some satires which gave offence; and by order of the viceroy Francisco Barreto, he was banished to China.

The accomplishments and manners of Camoens soon found him friends, though under the disgrace of banishment. He was appointed commissary of the defunct in the island of Macao, a Portuguese settlement in the bay of Canton. Here he continued his Lusiad; and here also, after five years residence, he acquired a fortune, though small, yet equal to his wishes. Don Constantine de Braganza was now viceroy of India; and Camoens, desirous to return to Goa, resigned his charge. In a ship, freighted by himself, he set sail; but was shipwrecked in the gulf near the mouth of the river Mehon, on the coast of China. All he had acquired was lost in the waves; his poems, which he held in one hand, while he swammed with the other, were all he found himself possessed of when he stood friendless on the unknown shore. But the natives gave him a most humane reception: this he has immortalized in the prophetic song in the tenth Lusiad; and in the seventh, he tells us, that here he lost the wealth which satisfied his wishes.

Agora da esperança ja adquirida, &c. Now blest with all the wealth fond hope could crave, Soon I beheld that wealth beneath the wave For ever lost; My life, like Judah's heaven-doomed king of yore, By miracle prolong'd—

On the banks of the Mehon he wrote his beautiful paraphrase of the psalm, where the Jews, in the finest strain of poetry, are represented as hanging their harps on the willows, by the rivers of Babylon, and weeping their exile from their native country. Here Camoens continued some time, till an opportunity offered to carry him to Goa. When he arrived at that city, Don Constantine de Braganza, the viceroy, whose characteristic was politeness, admitted him into intimate friendship, and Camoens was happy till Count Redondo assumed the government. Those who had formerly procured the banishment of the satirist, were silent while Constantine was in power; but now they exerted all their arts against him. Redondo, when he entered on office, pretended to be the friend of Camoens; yet, with all that unfeeling indifference with which he made his most horrible witticism on the Zamorin, he suffered the innocent man to be thrown into the common prison. After all the delay of bringing witnesses, Camoens, in a public trial, fully refuted every accusation of his conduct while commissary at Macao, and his enemies were loaded with ignominy and reproach. But Camoens had some creditors, and these detained him in prison a considerable time, till the gentlemen of Goa began to be ashamed that a man of his singular merit should experience such treatment among them. He was set at liberty; and again he assumed the profession of arms, and received the allowance of a gentleman volunteer, a character at this time common in Portuguese India. Soon after, Pedro Barreto, appointed governor of the fort at Sofala, by high promises, allured the poet to attend him thither. The governor of a distant fort, in a barbarous country, shares in some measure the fate of an exile. Yet, though the only motive of Barreto was, in this unpleasant situation, to retain the conversation of Camoens at his table, it was his least care to render the life of his guest agreeable. Chagrined with his treatment, and a considerable time having elapsed in vain dependence upon Barreto, Camoens resolved to return to his native country. A ship, on the homeward voyage, at this time touched at Sofala, and several gentlemen who were on board were desirous that Camoens should accompany them. But this the governor ungenerously endeavoured to prevent, and charged him with a debt for board. Anthony de Cabra, however, and Hector de Sylveyra, paid the demand; and Camoens, says Faria, and the honour of Barreto, were sold together.

After an absence of 16 years, Camoens, in 1569, returned to Lisbon, unhappy even in his arrival, for the pestilence then raged in that city, and prevented his publication for three years. At last, in 1572, he printed his Lusiad, which, in the opening of the first book, in a most elegant turn of compliment, he addressed to his prince, King Sebastian, then in his 18th year. The king, says the French translator, was so pleased with his merit, that he gave the author a pension of 4000 reals, on condition that he should reside at court. But this salary, says the same writer, was withdrawn by Cardinal Henry, who succeeded to the crown of Portugal, lost by Sebastian at the battle of Alcazar.

Though the great patron of one species of literature, a species the reverse of that of Camoens, certain it is, that the author of the Lusiad was utterly neglected by Henry, under whose inglorious reign he died in all the misery of poverty. By some, it is said, he died in an almshouse. It appears, however, that he had not even the certainty of subsistence which these houses provide. He had a black servant, who had grown old with him, and who had long experienced his master's humanity. This grateful Indian, a native of Java, who, according to some writers, saved his master's life in the unhappy shipwreck where he lost his effects, begged in the streets of Lisbon for the only man in Portugal on whom God had bestowed those talents which have a tendency to erect the spirit of a downward age. To the eye of a faithful observer, the fate of Camoens throws throws great light on that of his country, and will appear strictly connected with it. The same ignorance, the same degenerated spirit, which suffered Camoens to depend on his share of the alms begged in the streets by his old hoary servant, the same spirit which caused this, sunk the kingdom of Portugal into the most abject vassalage ever experienced by a conquered nation. While the grandees of Portugal were blind to the ruin which impended over them, Camoens beheld it with a pungency of grief which hastened his exit. In one of his letters he has these remarkable words: *Em fim acabarey á vida, e verram todos que fui eficazada a minha patria, &c.* "I am ending the course of my life; the world will witness how I have loved my country. I have returned, not only to die in her bosom, but to die with her."

In this unhappy situation, in 1579, in his 62nd year, the year after the fatal defeat of Don Sebastian, died Louis de Camoens, the greatest literary genius ever produced by Portugal; in martial courage and spirit of honour nothing inferior to her greatest heroes. And in a manner suitable to the poverty in which he died, was he buried.

**CAMOMILE.** See Anthemis, Botany Index.

**CAMP,** the ground on which an army pitch their tents. It is marked out by the quartermaster general, who appoints every regiment their ground.

The chief advantages to be minded in choosing a camp for an army, are to have it near the water, in a country of forage, where the soldiers may find wood for dressing their victuals; that it have a free communication with garrisons, and with a country from whence it may be supplied with provisions; and, if possible, that it be situated on a rising ground, in a dry gravelly soil. Besides, the advantages of the ground ought to be considered, as marshes, woods, rivers, and enclosure; and if the camp be near the enemy, with no river or marsh to cover it, the army ought to be intrenched. An army always encamps fronting the enemy; and generally in two lines, running parallel, about 500 yards distance; the horse and dragoons, on the wings; and the foot, in the centre; sometimes a body of two, three, or four brigades, is encamped behind the two lines, and is called the body of reserve. The artillery and bread-waggons are generally encamped in the rear of the two lines. A battalion of foot is allowed 80 or 100 paces for its camp; and 30 or 40 for an interval betwixt one battalion and another. A squadron of horse is allowed 30 for its camp, and 30 for an interval, and more if the ground will allow it.

Where the grounds are equally dry, those camps are always the most healthful that are pitched on the banks of large rivers; because, in the hot season, situations of this kind have a stream of fresh air from the water, serving to carry off the moist and putrid exhalations. On the other hand, next to marshes, the worst encampments are on low grounds close beset with trees; for then the air is not only moist and hurtful in itself, but by stagnating becomes more susceptible of corruption. However, let the situation of camps be ever so good, they are frequently rendered infectious by the putrid effluvia of rotten straw, and the privies of the army, more especially if the bloody flux prevails; in which case, the best method of preventing a general infection, is to leave the ground with the privies, foul straw, and other filth of the camp, behind. This must be frequently done, if consistent with the military operations; but when these render it improper to change the ground often, the privies should be made deeper than usual, and once a day a thick layer of earth thrown into them till the pits are near full; and then they are to be well covered, and supplied by others. It may also be a proper caution to order the pits to be made either in the front or the rear, as the then stationary winds may best carry off their effluvia from the camp. Moreover, it will be necessary to change the straw frequently, as being not only apt to rot, but to retain the infectious steams of the sick. But if fresh straw cannot be procured, more care must be taken in airing the tents, as well as the old straw.

The disposition of the Hebrew encampment was at first laid out by God himself. Their camp was of a quadrangular form, surrounded with an enclosure of the height of 10 hands-breadth. It made a square of 12 miles in compass about the tabernacle; and within this was another called the Levites camp.

The Greeks had also their camps, fortified with gates and ditches. The Lacedemonians made their camp of a round figure, looking upon that as the most perfect and defensible of any form: we are not, however, to imagine, that they thought this form so essential to a camp, as never to be dispensed with when the circumstances of the place required it. Of the rest of the Grecian camps, it may be observed, that the most valiant of the soldiers were placed at the extremities, the rest in the middle. Thus we learn from Homer, that Achilles and Ajax were posted at the ends of the camp before Troy, as bulwarks on each side of the rest of the princes.

The figure of the Roman camp was a square divided into two principal parts: in the upper part were the general's pavilion, or praetorium, and the tents of the chief officers; in the lower, those of inferior degree were placed. On one side of the praetorium stood the quaestorium, or apartment of the treasurer of the army; and near this the forum, both for a market place and the assembling of councils. On the other side of the praetorium were lodged the legati; and below it the tribunes had their quarters, opposite to their respective legions. Aside of the tribunes were the prefecti of the foreign troops, over against their respective wings; and behind these were the lodgments of the evocati, then those of the extraordinarii and ablecti equites, which concluded the higher part of the camp. Between the two partitions was a spot of ground called principia, for the altars and images of the gods, and probably also for the chief ensigns. The middle of the lower partition was assigned to the Roman horse: next to them were quartered the triarii; then the principes, and close by them the hastati; afterwards the foreign horse, and lastly, the foreign foot. They fortified their camp with a ditch and parapet, which they termed fossa and vallum: in the latter some distinguish two parts, viz. the agger or earth, and the sudes or wooden stakes driven in to secure it. The camps were sometimes surrounded by walls made of hewn stone; and the tents themselves formed of the same matter.

In the front of the Turkish camp are quartered the janizaries and other foot, whose tents encompass their aga: in the rear are the quarters of the spahis and other The body of the camp is possessed by the stately tents or pavilions of the vizier or general, rais effendi or chancellor, khaja or steward, the tendarbashaw or lord treasurer, and kapislar kahia-seer or master of the ceremonies. In the middle of these tents is a spacious field, wherein are erected a building for the divan, and a hafna or treasury. When the ground is marked out for a camp, all wait for the pitching of the tent laifac, the place where the courts of justice are held; it being the disposition of this that is to regulate all the rest.

The Arabs still live in camps, as the ancient Scenites did. The camp of the Assyne Emir, or king of the country about Tadmor, is described, by a traveller who viewed it, as spread over a very large plain, and possessing so vast a space, that though he had the advantage of a rising ground, he could not see the utmost extent of it. His own tent was near the middle; scarce distinguishable from the rest, except that it was bigger, being made, like the others, of a sort of hair-cloth.

Camp, is also used by the Siamese, and some other nations in the East Indies, as the name of the quarters which they assign to foreigners who come to trade with them. In these camps, every nation forms, as it were, a particular town, where they carry on all their trade, not only keeping all their warehouses and shops there, but also living in these camps with their whole families. The Europeans, however, are so far indulged, that at Siam, and almost everywhere else, they may live either in the cities or suburbs, as they shall judge most convenient.

Camp-fight, or Kamp-fight, in law writers, denotes the trial of a cause by duel, or a legal combat of two champions in the field, for decision of some controversy.

In the trial by camp-fight, the accuser was, with the peril of his own body, to prove the accused guilty; and, by offering him his glove, to challenge him to this trial, which the other must either accept of, or acknowledge himself guilty of the crime whereof he was accused.

If it were a crime deserving death, the camp-fight was for life and death; if the offence deserved only imprisonment, the camp-fight was accomplished when one combatant had subdued the other, so as either to make him yield or take him prisoner. The accused had liberty to choose another to fight in his stead, but the accuser was obliged to perform it in his own person, and with equality of weapons. No women were permitted to be spectators, nor men under the age of thirteen. The priest and the people who looked on were engaged silently in prayer, that the victory might fall to him who had right. None might cry, shriek, or give the least sign; which in some places was executed with so much strictness, that the executioner stood ready with an axe to cut off the right hand or foot of the party that should offend herein.

He that, being wounded, yielded himself, was at the other's mercy either to be killed or suffered to live. But if life were granted him, he was declared infamous by the judge, and disabled from ever bearing arms, or riding on horseback.