Chap. V.] 



STORY OF THE TOOTH. 



217 



Discussing these considerations with the great chamberlain, 

 who was a man of resoiu'ces and tact, the latter pointed out 

 to the king, who relied on his judgment in all things, that 

 although forced to abandon Cotta and reduced to poverty, he 

 might, through this alliance, open up a rich commerce with Pegu, 

 and he accordingly assented that the girl should be despatched 

 to the king, provided she was conveyed away secretly and with- 

 out the knowledge of the Portuguese at Colombo. 



" But the chamberlain did more ; in concert with the king, 

 he caused to be made out of a stag's horn a fac-siraile of the 

 ape's tooth carried off by Don Constantine, and mounting it 

 in gold, he enclosed it in a costly shrine richly decorated with 

 gems. Conversing one day with the Peguan ambassador and 

 the Buddhist priests (talapoens) in his suite, who were about 

 to set out to worship and make offerings at the sacred footprint 

 on Adam's Peak, the chamberlain, who was a Buddhist at 

 heart, disclosed to them in confidence that Don Juan, the 

 Singhalese king, was still in possession of the genuine tooth of 

 Buddha^ that which was seized by Don Constantine being a 

 counterfeit, and that he, the great chamberlain, kept it con- 

 cealed in his house, the king of Ceylon having become a Chris- 

 tian. The ambassador and the talapoens evinced their delight 

 on this intelligence, and besought him to permit them to see it ; 

 he consented reluctantly, and first obliging them to disguise 

 themselves, he conducted them by night to his residence, and 

 there exhibited the tooth in its shrine, resting on an altar, 

 surrounded by perfumes and lights. At the sight they pro- 

 strated themselves on the ground, and spent the greater part of 

 the night in ceremonies and superstitious devotion ; afterwards, 

 addressing the great chamberlain, they entreated him to send 

 the relic to the king of Pegu, at the same time wath the 

 princess ; undertaking that as a part of the splendour and pomp 

 of the marriage, Brama would send him a million of gold, and 

 year by year despatch to Ceylon a present of a ship laden with 

 rice and. such other articles as might be required. All this 

 was negotiated privately, the king and the great chamberlain 

 alone being in the secret. 



' De Cottto, who originally de- 

 scribes it as the tooth of Jkiddha, 

 calls it in this passage, " Dente do 

 seu idolo Quijay ; " and in another 

 place "do Qin'ar," probably a corrupt 



spelling-- of the Bunnese word for a 

 Buddha " Phra," or possibly a modi- 

 fication of tlie Cliinese name for 

 Gotama, ^^ Kiu-fan.'^ 



