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



allow their ships to be taken from them in his port, which was a 

 great derogation of his honour ; to which the king replied that 

 they had not considered his honour when they told him lies, and 

 now they desired that his honour should be preserved in order 

 that they might not have their ships taken from them, which had 

 been captured by those whom they had called robbers, so bad, 

 according to what they said , that he could not ask for what they 

 certainly would not give. The Moors answered : " Sir, we speak 

 ill of the Portuguese , because they act so towards us , but do thou , 

 as a great king, have pity on us." The king, in order to see 

 whether what had been done were good or bad, sent and asked 

 Dom Lourenco to release the ships, as by so doing he would 

 gratify him. Dom Lourenco sent him word, that the king of 

 Calecut being false and bad murdered the Portuguese who were in 

 his city buying and selling, in order to steal what they had ; and 

 with this message he sent Fernao Cotrim, 16 whom Dom Lou- 

 renco ordered to relate to the king all the evils that the king of 

 Calecut had done , and that for this reason the king of Portugal had 

 commanded that all merchants of Calecut, wherever they were 

 found, should be burnt alive ; and that on arriving at the port he 

 had not ordered the ships to be burnt, because there were no 

 Moors in them ; but, as he had asked it, he gave him the ships, 

 that he might use them as his own, and did not give them to the 

 Moors, being still their enemy ; and that he gave him the ships 

 on condition that never again would he allow Moors of Calecut to 

 enter his ports, because if he found them there he was bound to 

 burn their ships. Then he ordered the ships to be taken back to 

 the places where they had been anchored ; for which the king 

 sent him hearty thanks, saying that never again would he allow 

 Moors of Calecut in his ports. Then Dom Lourenco, taking the 

 cinnamon and the two elephants, prepared to depart, and sent 

 word to the king, that he wished to leave behind at that port a 

 memorial set up, in remembrance of the peace that had been 

 agreed to. At which the king was much pleased, saying that he 

 would be glad if he erected many memorials which would last 

 for ever. 



Then Dom Lourenco went on shore, and on a point of land 

 which stood above the bay he erected a column of stone with the 

 escutcheons of arms such as I have already described ; 17 and 

 when the marble had been raised and put in its place, Dom 

 Lourenco-, on his knees , offered a prayer to the cross that was on 

 it, and then retired. Then he sent word to the king that the 

 peace which they had concluded would last as long as that stone 

 which he was leaving there, with the obligation that if anyone 

 entered that port to do him harm he would at once come to defend 

 and aid him. The king sent answer that he would be glad if he 

 erected other stones in all his ports ; but Dom Lourenco sent 

 back word that this stone sufficed for all his ports, because this 

 port was the principal one. 



Near this port were certain great rocky places, where was a big 

 den below a great cave, in which for a very long time had been 

 living a reptile with two feet, a great tail, a short neck, a flat head, 



