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



We can picture the old warrior, whose whole career had 

 been one of bloodshed, seeking to salve his conscience by 

 this alms to the church. 



The second letter is of even greater interest ; for it gives 

 as the name of Simao Pinhao's niece (showing that he was 

 connected with one of the noblest families in Portugal), and 

 furnishes us with the information that in reward for his 

 services (in Ceylon chiefly) he had been granted "for three 

 lives" (the usual term) the adjacent villages of Opanake and 

 Knttapitiya on the confines of Sabaragamuwa and the Kand- 

 yan kingdom, where some of the fiercest fighting between 

 the Portuguese and Sinhalese had taken place. The letter 

 also proves, I think, that in 1620 Pinhao was already dead. 



These comprise all the references to Simao Pinhao that 

 I have been able to find ; and it will be seen that, like a 

 meteor, he suddenly appears, blazes for a while, and then 

 disappears in obscurity. 



(2) Who was the foe Simao Pinhao overcame ? 



(3) What was the event which the stone commemorates ? 

 I shall consider both questions together. If it were 



possible to answer offhand the last question, the solution of 

 the other would be easy. But, unfortunately, owing to the 

 breaks in the history of the Portuguese in Ceylon to which 

 I have referred, and the illegibility of portions of the inscrip- 

 tion under consideration, we have no certain data from which 

 to draw our conclusions, and are relegated to the region of 

 hypothesis. 



A serious difficulty that presents itself at the outset of our 

 inquiry arises from the fact that we cannot be absolutely 

 certain that the stone has not been brought from some other 

 locality ; though this I regard as improbable.* Granted, 

 then, that the event commemorated in the inscription took 

 place at or near the site of the Maha Saman Devale where 

 the Portuguese fort of " Sof ragao " undoubtedly, I think, 



* There may possibly exist Sinhalese documentary evidence regarding this. 



