NO. 59. 1907.] PORTUGUESE IN CEYLON. 



359 



we have said above [i. 609], who remained in the armada of the viceroy. 



The viceroy gave great dispatch to these four ships with the 



object that these should load first, and that if there were not enough 

 cargo for all, that then those should remain that came this year, which 

 could not load ; and he gave the captaincy of these two ships, one to 

 Vasco Gomes d'Abreu, who wished to return to the kingdom, because 

 of being out of favour with the viceroy, and the other he gave to Fran- 

 cisco da Silva." All which is terribly incorrect, as may be seen from 

 what I have related above. 



22 There seems to be a certain amount of truth in what Correa says 

 here. That the viceroy did send to Portugal, to recount to the king the 

 " discovery " of Ceylon, some of the men who had taken part in it, we 

 know from his own statement (see C5). And that Dom Francisco was 

 unwilling to write of his own doings we also know from the same letter, 

 in which he writes to the king (Cor. i. 910) : " Since your highness com- 

 mands that of the things that I do I be the writer, a thing that to me 

 always seemed ill in men of honour, I must do it, wdth the protestation 

 that the error that maybe in this is not through my fault." That he 

 wrote to the king announcing his son's " discovery " of Ceylon is clear 

 from the summary of his letter quoted in B 2 ; but how much he said 

 on that subject we shall never know. The details given in the king's 

 letter to the pope (B 3) and copied by Cast. (B 8) were probably furnished 

 by the persons sent home by the viceroy. 



23 Cast. (B8) doesnot say that this was the first elephant ever sent to 

 Portugal. Correa' s statement may or may not be true. 



B 11. 



The Discoveries of the World, by Antonio Galvao, 1 104. 

 [1505 or 1506.] 



At the end of this year [1505], or at the beginning of the next, 2 

 the viceroy sent his son Dom Lourenco to the islands of Maldiva, 

 and through contrary weather he made landfall at the islands 

 [sic] which the ancients called Tragana 3 and the Moors Itteru- 

 benero, 4 and we now call Ceilam, where he went ashore, and 

 concluded peace with those of the country, and returned to Cochim 

 along the coast, making himself acquainted with the whole 

 of it. 5 



1 Antonio Galvao, the so-called " apostle of the Moluccas," went 

 to the East in 1527 and spent many years there. His book was first 

 published in 1563, and a very faulty English translation was printed by 

 Hakluyt in 1601. This and the original text were reprinted by the 

 Hakluyt Society in 1862 (shockingly edited, and without an index). 



2 This is noteworthy, showing that at the time when Galvao wrote 

 doubt existed as to the exact date of Dom Lourenco's visit. 



3 This name, which is found in Schott's map of Ptolemy, 1513, 

 may represent the first part of " Trincomalee " (c/. A 10, note 3 ). 



4 The 6 in this name should probably be I ; and the whole seems to 

 represent Tamil tiru Ila-nddu, " the sacred country of Ceylon " (c/. 

 C 22, note 3 ). 



5 I do not know what authority the writer has for this last state- 

 ment (c/. B 9). 



