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



of the futility of the attempt.* As might be expected, the ex- 

 peditionary fleet, as soon as it got out to sea, was driven by the 

 wind and currents! in a south-easterly direction, and made 

 landfall at the port of Columbo on the west coast of Ceylon. 

 It is true that of the three historians Correa alone, a not very 

 trustworthy authority, mentions Columbo as the port into 

 which Dom Lourenco put, Castanheda and Barros asserting 

 that the port was that of Gale. J But we have seen that 

 Castanheda is utterly wrong with regard to the date of the 

 "discovery" of Ceylon; and Barros, with a curious lack of 

 consistency, in a later passage of his history (see C 3) confirms 



south- west monsoon in their favour, and return in December and January 

 with the north-east monsoon." And yet, as we have seen, Barros says 

 (see B 9) that the viceroy sent his son when he did "because of its being 

 the monsoon Weather [or season] for that passage." The Portuguese 

 learnt by experience : for when Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in 1519 dis- 

 patched Joao Gomes Cheiradinheiro to build a fort at the Maldives he 

 sent him off in January apparently. And we find Alvaro Fernandez, 

 in writing to the king in 1520 about the islands, saying {Alg. Doc. 452) : 



" the monsoon season, which is from December until the end of 



March, excepting those [goods] from Malabar, which go sooner to the 

 islands, on account of being so close." 



* Cast, (see B8) ascribes the failure of the ships to reach the Maldives 

 to the inexperience of the pilots ; Bar. (see B 9) to that of the Portu- 

 guese themselves, "although they took with them some natives ;" and 

 Cor. (see B 10) to the carelessness of the pilots, although he had pre- 

 viously described these men as "good pilots supplied by the king of 

 Cochym." How the viceroy accounted for the failure in writing to the 

 king we do not know, for, of the paragraph dealing with the expedition 

 in Dom Francisco's letter of 27 December 1506 (see B 2), all that 

 remains to us is the uninforming summary, " Item : how he sent Dom 

 Lourenco to the islands of Mai diva and Quymdiquel." 



f Regarding the treacherous nature of the monsoon winds and the 

 currents between the Maldives and the coast of India and Ceylon, see 

 Pyrard (Hak. Soc.) i. 257, 280. 



X Cast, says "the port of Gabaliquamma, which our people now call 

 the port of Gale." On "Gabaliquamma" see note 27 to C 22. In his 

 fourth book, chap, xlii., Cast, again writes " Gale, where on a former 

 occasion Dom Lourenco Dalmeida made landfall, as I have said." In 

 view of the almost absolute certainty that Columbo was the port at 

 which Dom Lourenco arrived, it is difficult to understand how Cast, and 

 Bar. were misled as to this, and further as to the identity of the 

 person who they say played the part of king (see below). 



