54 



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



[Vol. XX. 



seeing some of his noblemen killed, and that the Moors who had 

 incited him to this rebellion against us were not the ones to 

 deliver him from our subjection, as they had promised him, 

 that day having passed, not many elapsed before he sent to 

 beg peace of Lopo de Brito, whereupon the affairs of that 

 fortress resumed the state of peace in which they had been 

 before. 



Dec. III.,Bk. vii., Chap. xi. 



This Christian 1 also related to us that in the house 



of Coulam, which was built by another disciple of the 

 apostle Saint Thomas, stood a sepulchre of the Sybil which 

 they called Indica, and that church was an oratory of hers. 

 And that through her warning, announcing the birth of Christ 

 Jesus, a king of the island of Ceilam called Pirimal went in a 

 ship to the coast of Mascate to join two other kings, who were 

 going to adore the Lord at Bethlehem, and that he was the 

 third ; who at the request of the Sybil brought the likeness 

 of Our Lady painted in a picture, which was placed in her own 

 sepulchre 2 . Of the voyage of which kings, and where the 

 two dwelt in whose company he went, we shall write in our 

 Geography when we treat of the cities Nazua and Balla, 



Dec. III., Bk. ix., Chap. ii. 



% . sfeu * s * sfc H? * 



And as the viceroy 3 carried instructions that he was 



to demolish the fortresses of Coulam, Ceilam, Calecut, and 



1 One of the Syrian Christians of Malabar, who came to Portugal to 

 learn Latin, and from whom Barros obtained information, which he 

 gives in this chapter. 



2 Barros does not seem to have realized that this story was a strangely 

 garbled version of the one he had related in I. ix. iii. of the king of 

 Malabar, Sarama Pereimal, who was converted to Muslim, abandoned 

 his kingdom, and went as a pilgrim to Mecca. (Couto in VII. ix. x. 

 speaks of a Xarao Perimal who in the fourth or sixth century was well 

 disposed to the St. Thomas Christians of Cranganor. ) Cheramam Peru- 

 mal was not a king of Ceylon, but, according to Zmuddin, was con- 

 verted by sheiks who were on their way to Ceylon as pilgrims to 

 Adam's Peak, and who called for him on their return. (See Ten. i. 

 630 n., ii. 136 n. ; David Lopes's Hist, dos Port, no Malabar lvii. 20.) 



3 D. Vasco da Gama, count of Vidigueira and admiral of the Indian 

 sea. This was his third and last voyage to India, and he died on 24 

 December 1524 at Cochin, where he was buried. 



