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MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. 



[PART V. 



the use of gunpowder \ and their arms were swords and 

 lance-heads mounted on shafts of bamboo ; " with these 

 they fought, but their battles were not bloody." The 

 Moors were in possession of the trade, and the king sent 

 a message to Barthema and his companions, expressive 

 of his desire to purchase their commodities ; but in con- 

 sequence of a hint that payment would be regulated by 

 the royal discretion, the Italians weighed anchor at night- 

 fall and 'bade a sudden adieu to Ceylon. 



Early in the sixteenth century, ODOARDO BARBOSA, 

 a Portuguese captain, who had sailed in the Indian 

 seas, compiled a summary of all that was then known 

 concerning the countries of the East 2 , with which the 

 people of Portugal had been brought into connection by 

 their recent discovery of the passage round the Cape of 

 Good Hope. Writing partly from personal observation, 

 but chiefly from information obtained from the previous 

 accounts of Di Conti, Barthema and Corsali 3 , he speaks 

 of that " grandest and most lovely island, which the 

 Moors of Arabia, Persia, and Syria call Zeilam, but the 

 Indians, Tenarisim, or the land of delights" Its ports 

 were crowded with Moors, who monopolised commerce, 

 and its inhabitants, whose complexions were fair and their 

 stature robust and stately, were altogether devoted to 

 pleasure and indifferent to arms. 



Barbosa appears to have associated chiefly with the 

 Moors, whose character and customs he describes almost 

 as they exist at the present day. He speaks of their 

 heads, covered with the finest handkerchiefs ; of their 

 ear-rings, so heavy with jewels that they hang down to 



1 The Rajavali, p. 279, describes 

 the wonder of the Singhalese on wit- 

 nessing for the first time the discharge 

 of a cannon by the Portuguese who 

 had landed at Colombo, A. D. 1517. 

 " A ball shot from one of them, after 

 flying some leagues, will break a 

 castle of marble, or even of iron." 

 . 2 II Sommario dclle Inde Oriontalc 



di ODOAEDO BARBOSA, Lisbon, 1519. 

 A sketch of the life of BARBOSA is 

 given in CRAWFTJRD'S Dictionary of 

 the Indian Islands, p. 39. 



3 Two letters written by AJ T DREA 

 CORSALI, a Florentine, dated from 

 Cochin, A. D. 1515, and addressed to 

 the Grand Duke Julian de Medicis. 



