No. 59. — 1907.] PEOCEEDINGS. 



391 



till later still. But the very two pages in which he discusses 

 this point (pp. 302 and 310) furnish abundant reason for not 

 attaching too much weight to names; the confusion is hopeless, and 

 it is most unsafe to build any argument on their identification. 

 Nor can it be regarded as definitely settled who the envoys were. 

 Indeed, even a careful writer like de Couto is not free from errors. 

 There is one passage where he has mixed up the names of two of 

 the kings of Ceylon ; in another he has given to Diogo de Silva 

 Modeliar the Christian name of Pedro in place of Diogo. The 

 writer is himself fully aware of this danger. On page 300 he points 

 out, of the historian Correa, that " he names as taking part in it 

 (a sea fight) men who had already left India or had not yet arrived 

 there." 



So much for the negative evidence brought forward by the writer. 

 He admits that the weather would have prevented any voyage 

 of discovery from April to August, and he continues: "Dom 

 Francisco de Almeida in August charged his son Dom Lourenco 

 with this expedition. Accordingly, at the end of August or 

 beginning of September, 1506, Dom Lourenco set sail with a 

 number of vessels." At the same time he admits that such a 

 proceeding at such a period of the year displays a strange 

 ignorance of the navigation of the Indian Ocean. The speaker was 

 not prepared to presume such ignorance, especially in view of the 

 definite assertion of de Barros that the voyage was undertaken 

 at a time when the monsoon was favourable for the journey, and 

 the fact that in 1519 the Portuguese expedition started at the 

 proper season, while it is also stated that Lourenco had good 

 Indian pilots. 



What positive evidence is there then in support of the new 

 theory ? On page 297 Mr. Ferguson says : "Asa matter of fact it 

 was neither at the end of 1505 nor at the beginning of 1506 that 

 Dom Lourenco set out." On page 298, referring to the elephant 

 and cinnamon taken by de Abreu, he says : " these had absolutely 

 no connection with any expedition to Ceylon, none having as 

 yet taken place," i.e., by February, 1506. On page 299 he says : 

 " However Dom Lourenco was employed until his appointment in 

 January or February, 1506, as captain-major of the sea, we may 

 be sure that he did not visit Ceylon." On page 306 we are informed 

 as a matter of fact that he started at a very improbable time, the 

 end of August or beginning of September, 1506. And on page 308 

 he triumphantly concludes: "we have seen that Castanheda is 

 utterly wrong with regard to the date of the discovery of Ceylon." 

 All these are assertions, and the actual evidence appears to 

 consist of two points. The first is relegated to a note on page 308, 

 which says that the expedition is referred to in a letter from the 

 viceroy dated December 27, 1506, a summary of the letter 

 itself being given in the Appendix B 2. It must, however, be 

 remembered that despatches to Portugal could only be sent 

 at one period of the year ; there is nothing in any way surprising 

 if a detailed report was sent in December, 1506, as supple- 

 mentary to the information sent through de Abreu. The 

 summary assigns no date to the expedition, and I can see very 



