H CEYLON BRANCH— ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIeW. 



whoever he might be, our Government shewed him many marks 

 of honor, as if he were the Comara Astara, with what design 

 or for what reasons we cannot tell. When here he continued 

 for some time to forbid devil-worship and to extort the peop'e 

 to serve God alone. .Even as during his residence in the Kin^s 

 territories he commanded the dagopa priests and devil enchanters 

 to bring him their revet ue, so in like manner his commands 

 here to that effect were obeyed by many, so that he accumu- 

 lated much wealth* On bis arrival he feigned an inclination to 

 the christian religion, so that the llev. S. De Vooght and Si- 

 mon Cat visited him frequently, but when they set forth scrip- 

 ture truths, he shewed little or no inclination. When on the 

 other hand he was interrogated on the mysteries of heathenism* 

 he refused making any disclosures, saying that he was ignorant 

 of them, and that the wise men living in the interior should be 

 applied to. It would be tedious to narrate the discourses held 

 with him, suffice it to mention one interview. On the 29th 

 July 1675 the two above n?med brethren called on him at his 

 request, and found at his house a collection of devil dancers 

 and dagoba priests, of whom 5 excelled in dancing, tremblings 

 movements of the limbs, and violent heavings of the breast, 

 under which they replied with a shrill voice, which appeared to 

 proceed from the stomach, to questions which were put them. 

 Being asked by this pseudo-prince who they were* like de- 

 mons, whose servants they are, they replied, the one that he 

 was a certain devil from the opposite coast, the others that 

 they were devils from certain provinces of the Island, the namgs 

 of which they mentioned ; the fifth and most crafty one said 

 he was Simon Cawi, a ruler in the time of the Portuguese, who 

 was a very cruel man and therefore dreaded by the inhabitants 

 even after his death. 



The Prince asked him what he intended doing hereafter, to 

 which lie replied, that since the God without name (a term by whteh 

 the inhabitants in imitation of the ancient Indians, speak of 



