10 SIODERN HISTORY. [Part VI. 



A.D. Owing to the difficulty of finding lime or even suitable 

 1^17. stone on the spot, the first entrenchment of the Portu- 

 guese consisted of earth-work and stockades ; and it was 

 1520. not till A.D. 1520, that Lopo de Brito was despatched 

 with 400 soldiers, besides masons and carpenters, with 

 orders to transport the shells of the pearl-oyster, which 

 still form vast mounds along the sea-shore of Aripo, and 

 to bm^n them for cement to complete the fortifications of 

 Colombo.^ The Moors availed themselves of this undis- 

 guised attempt to convert a factory into a fortress, as an 

 aro-ument to rouse the indication of the Sino-halese ; and 

 an army of 20,000 men was collected, which for upwards 

 of five months held the Portuguese in utmost peril within 

 the area of theh' entrenchments^, till the besiegers, 

 alarmed by the arrival of reinforcements from India, 

 suddenly dispersed, and left the garrison at hberty to 

 complete their fortifications. 



But hostihties w^ere merely suspended, not abandoned, 

 and a war now commenced which endured almost with- 

 out intermission diuring the entu'e period the Portuguese 

 held possession of the maritime provinces ; a war wliich, 

 as De Couto observes, rendered Ceylon to Portugal 

 what Carthage had proved to Eome — a som^e of un- 

 ceasing and anxious expenditm^e, " gradually consuming 

 her Indian revenues, wasting her forces and her artillery, 

 and causing a greater outlay for tlie government of 

 that single island than for all her other conquests in the 

 East." 3 



445. Camoexs, iu tlie Lusiad, cele- i 2 Sax Roitaxo, lib. ii. cli. xxvi. 

 brates this incident of the trihtrtc of | p. ,349 



Cinnamon as the crowning triumph 

 which .signalised the planting of the 

 " Lusitanian standard on the towera 

 of Colombo." 



" Dell.T dara tributo a Lusit.ina 

 Bandeira, qiiando excolsa e gloriosa 

 Veiicendo se ergiuni na torre erguid<i 

 Em Colurabo,dos proprios tao temida." 

 Canto X. ft. 51. 



^ De Bareos, dec. iii. lib. iv. ch. ^-i. 

 vol. iii. pt. i. p. 445 ; Faria y Souza, 



3 De Corxo, dec. v. pt. i. ch. v. 

 RoDRiGTJES DE Saa, in his narrative 

 of the rebellion in Ceylon, in which 

 his father perished in 16.30^ records a 

 similar opinion : — ^' ^'arios y estraiios 

 casossuccedidos en vma couqiiista, que 

 siendo a los Estados de la India como 

 otro Cartago a Roma en la hoiTibel 

 y prolixo de la guen-a, iguald sin 



vol. i. pt. iii. ch. iv. p. 238 ; PaBETRO, duda a los mas fonnidables de Eu 

 book i. ch. V. ; Sax Romaxo, lib. ii. ; I'opa; porque ha cieuto y vemte siete 

 ch. xxvi. p. 348. ' ^"•'s que dura con igual obstinaciou 



