No. 60. — 1908.] BARROS : HISTORY OF CEYLON. 



And as to the number of fighting men, he considered it certain, 

 judging by what had passed as to the willingness that the king 

 had shown 1 , that he would have no impediment to the building 

 of the fortress. So that, with this assurance, in September 

 of that year 1518 he set out from Cochij, taking a fleet of seven- 

 teen sail, of which seven were galleys, the captains being 

 Manuel de Lacerda, Lopo de Brito, Antonio de Miranda da 

 Zevedo, Joam de Mello, Gaspar da Silva, Christovam de 

 Sousa, and Dinis Fernandez de Mello, in whose vessel Lopo 

 Soarez went 2 . And there were also eight foists, which Dom 

 Fernando de Monroy 3 had brought from Goa, which Lopo 

 Soarez had that winter ordered him to get ready for this 

 voyage ; and he also took two ships with munitions : in which 

 fleet went as many as seven hundred Portuguese men of 

 arms 4 . 



Lopo Soarez went pursuing his voyage, and when he had 

 almost reached the port of Columbo, at which he was going 

 to put in, the winds set so full astern, that the seas that ran with 

 them along the coast took him out of his course, and carried 

 him to the end of the island into the port of Galle, which will 

 be twenty leagues from Columbo, where he was detained more 

 than a month 5 , until the weather gave him the opportunity 

 of going to Columbo, where he arrived with all his fleet. This 

 port of Columbo has almost the shape of a hook, for it has a 

 spacious entrance, the middle of which is cut by a river* and 

 the point that forms the barb of the hook is so sharp, and is so 

 separated from the main body of the rest of the land, that a 

 stone could be thrown across its breadth, and being cut off by a 



1 I can find no authority for this statement (c/. below at note 6 , page 

 40). 



2 Cf. this list with those given by Castanheda (C. Lit. Reg. iv. 197) and 

 Correa (ib. iv. 180), the last writer, however, being untrustworthy, one 

 captain he names, Fernao Peres de Andrade, being then in China (see 

 my Let. from Port. Gapt. 13). The mention by Castanheda and Barros 

 of Lopo de Brito is puzzling, since both state that Lopo de Brito 

 left Portugal for India in 1519 to take up the captaincy of Columbo. 

 Perhaps this was a namesake. 



3 A brother of the captain of Goa. 



4 Castanheda says eight or nine hundred, all Portuguese ; while 

 Correa says that the whites exceeded a thousand, and that there were 

 two hundred Malabar mercenaries with their captain. 



5 Castanheda says 1| month ; Correa does not specify the period. 

 Both these writers record encounters between the Sinhalese and the 

 Portuguese, owing to the slaughter of cattle and robberies by the latter. 



6 The outlet of the Columbo lake (the present Lotus Pond) is probably 

 meant. Correa shows this " river " in his drawing of Columbo. 



