22 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. XX. 



Dec. I., Bk. x., Chap. v. 



How the viceroy sent his son Bom Lourenco to discover the 

 islands of Maldiva and the island of Ceilam ; and what he 

 did on this voyage until he returned to Cochij. 



The Moors who engaged in the traffic of the spiceries and 

 riches of India, seeing that with our entrance into it they could 

 no longer make their voyages because of these armadas that 

 we maintained on the Malabar coast, at which they all called, 

 sought for another new route by which to convey the spiceries 

 that they obtained from the parts about Malaca, such as 

 cloves, nutmegs, mace, sandalwood, pepper, which they ob- 

 tained from the island of Qamatra at the ports of Pedir and 

 Pacem, and many other things from those parts ; which route 

 they followed by coming outside of the island of Ceilam and 

 between the islands of Maldiva, crossing that great gulf until 

 they reached the mouths of the two straits that we have men- 

 tioned 1 , in order to avoid this coast of India which we had 

 closed to them. When the viceroy learnt of this new route 

 that they were taking, and also of the island of Ceilam, where 

 they loaded cinnamon because all that was to be found in 

 those parts was there, on the ground of the great importance 

 that it would be to the king's service to stop that route, and 

 to discover that island, and also those of Maldiva, by reason 

 of the coir that was obtained from them, which was the one 

 essential for all the Indian navigation, all the rigging being 

 made of it, he determined to send his son Dom Lourenco on 

 this enterprise, it being the monsoon weather for that passage 2 . 

 The latter took nine sail of those that formed his armada ; and 

 owing to the little knowledge that our people had of that route, 

 although they took with them some natives, they were carried 

 by the currents to the island of Ceilam, which the ancients 

 call Tapobrana, regarding which we shall give a copious 

 relation 3 when we come to describe what Lopo Soarez did 

 there when he founded a fortress in one of its ports called 

 Columbo, which is fourteen leagues above that of Gale, at 

 which Dom Lourenco made landfall 4 , which is at the point 



1 The " two straits " are those of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, 

 the spice trade with which, before the arrival of the Portuguese in 

 India, Barros describes in I. vin. i. 



2 On this see my " Discovery of Ceylon by the Portuguese in 1506," 

 in C.A.S. JL, vol. xix., No. 59 (1907), where I show the date to have 

 been September 1506. 



3 See III. ii. i. (p. 29 ff."). 



4 On this error see my " Discovery of Ceylon," pp. 308-9, and cf. 

 infra, p. 27, note 3 . 



