418 



TIIE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. 



[PART III. 



A.D. It was iii this state of exhaustion, that the Singhalese 

 1505. we re brought into contact with Europeans, during the 

 reign of Dharma Prakrama IX., when the Portuguese, who 

 had recently established themselves in India, appeared 

 for the first time in Ceylon, A.D. 1505. The paramount 

 sovereign was then living at Cotta ; and the Rajavali re- 

 cords the event in the following terms : "And now it 

 came to pass that in the Christian year 1522, in the 

 month of April, a ship from Portugal arrived at Colombo, 

 and information was brought to the king, that there were 

 in the harbour a race of very white and beautiful people, 

 who wear boots and hats of iron, and never stop in one 

 place. They eat a sort of white stone, and drink blood ; 

 and if they get a fish they give two or three ride in gold 

 for it ; and besides, they have guns with a noise^ louder 

 than thunder, and a ball shot from one of them, after tra- 

 versing a league, will break a castle of marble." * 



Before proceeding to recount the intercourse of the 

 islanders with these civilised visitors, and the grave re- 

 sults which followed, it will be well to cast a glance over 

 the condition of the people during the period which pre- 

 ceded ; and to cull from the native historians such notices 

 of the domestic and social position of the Singhalese as 

 occur in passages intended by their annalists to chronicle 

 only those events which influenced the national worship, 

 or the exploits of those royal personages, who earned im- 

 mortality by their protection of Buddhism. 



Nissanga, who was summoned from 

 Kalinga on the Coromandel Coast. 

 On the extinction of the recognised 

 line of Suluwanse in A.D. 1706, a 

 prince from Madura, who was merely 

 a connection by marriage, succeeded 

 to the throne. TheKingKaiaSingha, 

 who detained KNOX in captivity, A.D. 



1640, was married to a Malabar prin- 

 cess. In fact, the four last kings of 

 Ceylon, prior to its surrender to Great 

 Britain, were pure Malabars, without 

 a trace of Singhalese blood. 



1 Rajavali, UPHAM'S version, p. 

 278. 



