ClIAP. I.] 



THE KAXDYANS TAKE ARMS. 



11 



1527. 



The king, Dharma Prakrama IX., the first with a.d. 

 whom the Portuguese came in contact, is correctly de- 

 scribed by EiBEYEO, as a weak and irresolute prince, 

 who lacked the courage to refuse any request.^ The 

 same may be said of his brother, Wijayo Bahu VII., 

 and of Bhuwaneka VII., son and successor of the latter. ^ a.d. 

 Though nominally the paramount sovereign of Ceylon, 

 such was the minute subdivision of the island into petty 

 fiefs, that the territory under the direct government of 

 the king was not only insignificant in extent, but from 

 its position, insusceptible of defence. On one side 

 Cotta, his capital, lay almost within range of the Portu- 

 guese guns ; and on all others he was overawed by his 

 own vassals, who, from their strongholds in the hills, 

 threatened him with revolt and invasion. The kings 

 of Cotta thus exposed to demands from arrogant 

 strangers which they were powerless to resist, and 

 alarmed by the resentment of their own people, called 

 forth by their concessions, were compelled, for security, 

 to draw closer the ill-omened alliance with Portugal, in 

 order to protect themselves from the indignation of their 

 nominal subjects. 



The first to organise an armed resistance to the en- 

 croachments of the new settlers, were the mountaineers 

 of Kandy and the surrounding regions. From the 

 earliest ages the inhabitants of these lofty ranges have 

 been distingiushed by their patriotism and ardent re- 

 sistance to every foreign invader. The same impatient 

 spirit, which had stimulated their forefathers fifteen 

 hundred years before, to avenge the first aggressions 

 of the Malabars, now animated their descendants to 

 repel the intrusion of European adventurers, wliose 

 mingled arrogance and duphcity served to inflame a 



(le Zingalas y Portuguesas, pug- 

 nando, estos por el Imperio y la ex- 

 ftltacion de nuestra santa Fe Cato- 

 lica; y afiuellos por la libertad de 



los cueTpos." — EoDRiGUES BE Saa, 

 liitbclion de Ceyhin, lS'y'., p. 2. 

 ' RiuEYRO, book i. chap. v. 



