No. 36.— 1888.] CAPTAIN JOAO ribeiro. 



28? 



LeG. translates the last word " coquillage " (shellfish), which 

 Lee has rendered " shells " ! Regarding smallpox, Ribeiro 

 says: — "They call this disease Deane charia, which in our 

 language means an affair with God." This appears in LeG. 

 as : — " The people of the country call it Ancharia, an affair 

 with God, because apparently one does not recover from it 

 except by a miracle, and because one must think of putting 

 his affairs in order when he is attacked by this disease." It will 

 be noticed that for " Deane charia" LeG. has "Ancharia" 

 which Lee has further altered into " Anharia." The origin 

 of Le Grand's blunder is found in B., which reads " dean- 

 charia" the first two letters of which word LeG. evidently 

 mistook for the Portuguese preposition de. "Deane charia" 

 apparently represents the Sinhalese Deviyanne kdriya. 

 The Sinhalese name of the venereal disease is given in 

 L.A. as " Pardngue rere" while B. (followed by LeG.) 

 reads " Parang melere" the latter being a better reading, 

 if, as I suppose, the Sinhalese para?igi-leda is intended. 

 Towards the end of this chapter the copyist of B. has omitted 

 several lines. 



Chapter XX. — Ribeiro states that " there are large num- 

 bers of bears in a portion of the island, but not throughout" : 

 this LeG. omits. Ribeiro's not very delicate story of the 

 soldier and the mungoose has been considerably toned down 

 by LeG. The statement in LeG. that " the Sinhalese call it 

 [the cobra] Naia and Naghaia" is an interpolation of the 

 Abbe's which he has fathered on Ribeiro. LeG. has also 

 considerably abbreviated Ribeiro's details regarding the 

 snakes of Ceylon. 



Chapter XXI. — In this chapter also LeG. has omitted 

 many little details given by Ribeiro : his mistranslation 

 regarding the gathering of pepper has been noticed above 

 by the editors of L.A. LeG. has appended to this chapter 

 an Addition, containing information on precious stones by 

 Barbosa, taken from Ramusio. 



Chapter XXII. — In this chapter also LeG. has taken 

 considerable liberties with his original. His blunder about 



