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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL, XI. 



prowling about like brigands. The condition of society in 

 Colombo must have been even worse than it was at Goa, 

 considering the soldiers who were sent to Ceylon were 

 generally those banished for their misdeeds, and the women 

 who accompanied them solteras of ill fame. 



Peculation and bribery existed, and were openly practised 

 from the Vedor dafazenda downwards, and some were even 

 accused of trading and selling arms to the natives — a thing 

 which unfortunately is not unknown in our own time. 



It was only a man of the character of Constantino de Sa 

 who could cope with such a state of affairs ; brave, and as 

 undaunted as any of the old Conquistador es, he was at the 

 same time without their ferocity. Gentle, mild, and tem- 

 perate in his disposition, without a selfish motive of any 

 kind, he tempered his government with the spirit of 

 humanity. He began gradually to reform, allowing some of 

 the lighter evils at first ; but in his thorough reforms these 

 very evils ceased to exist, and there is no knowing what he 

 might have done for the Portuguese in Ceylon had he been 

 spared ; but unfortunately he was surrounded by treachery; 

 for even amongst his own countrymen there were some 

 who, jealous of his fame, hated him for putting a restraint on 

 their luxury and vices. 



A deep-laid plot had been hatching by four of the most 

 powerful Sinhalese Mudaliyars for some time before he 

 undertook his last fatal expedition ; and so secretly had it 

 been kept that nothing was known until it was too late. Start- 

 ing from Menikkadavara, the Portuguese camp of observa- 

 tion, on the 25th August, 1650, with a force numbering from 

 13,000 to 20,000 men (of whom barely 500 were Portuguese), 

 the native lascarins being led by the four traitor Mudali- 

 yars, he forced the Balana pass, surprised Kandy, 

 burning and destroying all on his way, as was usual with 

 both Portuguese and Sinhalese in those days. The King of 

 Kandy, who was at Hanguranketa, fled to the mountains of 

 Uva. 



Sa's force advanced across country through the jungle 

 in a long straggling line, the pioneers with their hat- 

 chets clearing the way. The march was long and toilsome. 

 The Portuguese soldier, with burgonet or iron helmet on 

 his head, a tight-laced jerkin or jacket, and his neck pro- 

 tected by a collar of buffalo hide, went barefoot, sometimes 

 up to his knees in dank ooze and the leaf mould of centuries. 

 He carried either arquebuse with bandoleers or a pike or 

 bow and arrows. The mountains over which they passed 



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