Chap. I.] 



ATROCITIES. 



23 



rison, slew tlieir leader, possessed himself of the person of 

 the queen, and seized the Kandyan throne, of which he 

 held undisturbed possession till his decease, twelve years 

 afterwards. •*■ 



Wimala Dharma thus succeeded to the rank and posi- 

 tion of Eaja Singha as the paramount sovereign of the 

 whole island, and chief of the national party opposed to 

 the Portuguese. The latter, resenting at once his treason 

 and then- own defeat, resorted to \dolent measures of 

 retaliation, and a war of extermination ensued, unsm'- 

 passed in atrocity and bloodshed.^ Jerome Azavedo, a 

 soldier less distinguished by his prowess than infamous 

 for his cruelties, was despatched to Ceylon in 1594, to 

 avenge the indignities endm^ed by his fcUow-countrjmien 

 at the hands of the Kandyan usurper, Faiia y Souza, in 

 a review of the career of this commander, wliicli ended in 

 a dmigeon at Lisbon, says his reverses were a judgment 

 from the Almighty for his barbarities in Ceylon. In 

 the height of liis success there, he beheaded mothers, after 

 forcing them to cast their babes betwixt mill-stones. 

 Punning on the name of the tribe of Gallas or Cliahas, 

 and its resemblance to the Portuguese word for cocks, 

 gallos, " he caused his soldiers to take up children on the 

 points of tlieir spears, and bade them hark how the young 

 cocks crow l"" "He caused many men to be cast off the 

 bridge at Malwane for the troops to see the crocodiles 

 devour them, and these creatures grew so used to the 

 food, that at a whistle they would lift then' heads above 

 the water." ^ 



A.D. 



1592. 



A.D. 



1594. 



^ Baldjstjs, cli.vi. p. 608. Ribetko 

 tells a story of a Singhalese mood- 

 liar (■wlioiu Baldjeus calls Janiore) 

 ■who joiued Lopo de Souza in this 

 expedition, brinping' a large force to 

 his aid ; but wliom Don Juan con- 

 trived to get rid of, by addressing to 

 him lictitious letters \vitli allusions to 

 a pretended plot to betray tlie I'ortu- 

 guese. De Souza, without giving the 

 moodliar an opportunity for explana- 



tion, passed his sword through his 

 heart. — IIibeyro, ch. vii. p. 47. 



'^ Yalentyn, who describes the 

 savage conduct of the Portuguese 

 during tliis war {Oud en Kieuw Oost- 

 Indien, ch. vi. p. ^'2^, says his infor- 

 mation was chietly obtained from the 

 reports of the Singhalese, wlio had a 

 "vivid recollection of these hon-ors. 



^ Faiua t Souza, IStevens' Traiu- 

 latimi, vol. iii. pt. iii. ch. xv. p. 279. 



c 4 



