INTRODUCTION. 



XXIX 



desde o estahlecimento destas conquistas ; Ordendda por 

 proviram de 28 de Marco de 1754.^ These contain 

 the despatches to and from the successive Captains- 

 General and Governors of Ceylon, so that, in part at 

 least, the replacement of the records lost in the colony 

 may be effected by transcription. 



Meanwhile in their absence I had no other resource 

 than the narratives of the Dutch and Portuguese histo- 

 rians, chiefly Valentyn, De Barros, and De Couto, 

 who have preserved in two languages the least familiar 

 in Europe, chronicles of their respective governments, 

 which, so far as I am aware, have never been republished 

 in any translation. 



The present volumes contain no detailed notice of 

 the Buddhist faith as it exists in Ceylon, of the Brahma- 

 nical rites, or of the other religious superstitions of the 

 island. These I have already described in my history 

 of Christianity in Ceylon} The materials for that work 

 were originally designed to form a portion of the present 

 one ; but having expanded to too great dimensions to 

 be made merely subsidiary, I formed them into a sepa- 

 rate treatise. Along with them I have incorporated facts 

 illustrative of the national character of the Singhalese 

 under the conjoint influences of their ancestral super- 

 stitions and the partial enlightenment of education and 

 gospel truth. 



Respecting the Physical Geography and Natural His-' 

 tory of the colony, I found an equal want of reliable 

 information ; and every work that even touched on the 



1 MSS. Brit. Mus. No. 20,861 to 

 20,900. 



^ Christianity in Ceylon : its In- 

 troduction and Progress under the 

 Portuguese., the Dutch., the British, 



and American Missions ; with an 

 Historical Sketch of the Brahmanical 

 and Buddhist Superstitions, by Sir 

 James Emerson Tennent. Loudon, 

 Murray, 1850. 



