No. 60. — 1908.] barros : history of ceylon. 37 



and dedicated themselves entirely to God, and make great 

 pilgrimages to visit the temples dedicated to him. Many- 

 things do the natives of this island relate of his sanctity and 

 that of his priests and brdmanes, which we defer until we treat 

 thereof in our Geography, and also of the customs of the people 

 and state of their kings, and the ceremonies that they observe 

 and regard amongst themselves. 



At present what is to the purpose of our history is to know 

 that it is divided into nine states, and each of these is called 

 a kingdom. The first and most notable is ruler of about 

 that tract of land in which we have said that all the cinnamon 

 grows, which lies in the western part of the island, and has 

 most of the sea-ports, and the best, that there are in it, the 

 chief city of which is called Columbo. Near to which is a 

 fortified place, called Cota (as we here say "fortress" 1 ), 

 in which the king dwells retired 2 , in order to keep himself 

 apart from the concourse of merchants who assemble at 

 that port of Columbo, and this was the one that Lopo 

 Soarez had gone to visit. Another kingdom lies to the 

 south of this at the point of this island, which they call 

 Galle, and on the eastern side it confines with the kingdom 

 of laula 3 , and in the north with another called Tanavaca ; 

 and that which is in the midst of the interior of this land 

 entirely surrounded by mountain ranges, which it has in place 

 of a wall, is the kingdom of Cande. And along the sea-coast 

 of this island are these kingdoms : Batecalou, which is the 

 easternmost in it ; and between it and that of Cande , which lies 

 to the west of it, is another called Vilacem 4 ; and going along 

 the coast of the island toward the north above Batecalou is 

 the kingdom of Triquinamale , which by the coast upward 

 comes to adjoin another called Jafanapatam, which is at the 

 point of the island towards the north, the which kingdoms 

 adjoin one another in the interior. And so great are they 

 amongst themselves, by so much the greater power that the 

 heathens and infidels have who possess them ; for they have 

 no other demarcations than the power of each, wherefore 

 we cannot define them with accuracy, since the covetousness of 

 men has no certain limits, even though they may have laws 

 divine and human as to how far what they may have extends. 



1 For once, Barros is right. 



2 A few years after this was written Cota was abandoned by the 

 puppet-king Dharmapala at the instance of the Portuguese (see infra, 

 p. 241). 



3 Yala. 



4 Wellassa. 



