JOUENAL 



OF THE 



ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, 

 CEYLON BRANCH. 



THE HISTORY OF CEYLON, FROM THE EARLIEST 

 TIMES TO 1600 A.D. 



As Related by Joao de Barros and Diogo do Couto. 



Translated and Edited by Donald Ferguson. 



INTRODUCTION. 

 Joao de Barros and Diogo do Couto 1 . 



Joao de Barros was born, of noble family, in or about the 

 year 1496 2 , and at an early age entered the service of the king 

 Dom Manuel. Like other youths in the royal household he 

 received a good education in the various branches of knowledge, 

 and he developed a special taste for history, his ambition being 

 to write a general history of Portugal. This wish he confided 

 to Dom Manuel in 1520 when presenting the king with a work 

 of fiction that he had composed, entitled Chronica do Emperador 

 Clarimundo. Dom Manuel in reply stated that for some time 



1 For the details here given I am indebted largely to the Lives of 

 Barros and Couto by Manoel Severim de Faria, printed in the 1778-88 

 edition of the Decades. Various errors in those Lives I have pointed out 

 in footnotes. In the case of Couto, however, the information is based 

 mainly on royal letters and other official documents. 



2 Neither place nor date of birth is known. 



rf* b 36-08 



