66 



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



[Vol. XX. 



time forward this island began to be famous in the world on 

 account of the much and very fine cinnamon that its jungles 

 yielded 1 . 



And as the Chins were the first that sailed throughout the 

 East, having received information regarding the cinnamon, 

 many juncos hastened to that island to load it, and from there 

 carried it to the ports of Persia and Arabia, whence it passed 

 " to Europe, as we shall relate more fully further on. Thus this 

 island was so frequented by Chin juncos, that every year there 

 went to it a great number of them, from which many Chins 

 remained in the country, and intermarried with the natives : 

 from between whom were born certain mixties, who continued 

 oalling themselves Cim Gallas, adding the name of the natives, 

 who were Gallas, to that of the Chins, whose proper name is 

 Cim, and formed that which we nowadays corruptly call Chim- 

 gallas, who in course of time came to be so famous, that they 

 gave their name to all in the island 2 . 



And so, as they proceed from the Chins, who are the falsest 

 heathens of the East, and from the banished men who had been 

 expelled from their own country as wicked and cruel : so all 

 those of this island are the most cowardly, false, and deceitful 

 that there are in the whole of India, because never up to this 

 day has there been found in a Chingalla faith or truth 3 . 



And as the Chins continued to carry on trade with this island, 

 and are wicked (as we have said), there put in there an armada 

 of theirs, when Dambadine Pandar was king 4 , whom we 

 have mentioned above ; and those of the country not being 



A This statement, which is not found in the Sinhalese chronicles, may 

 be founded on popular tradition. Kazwini, the Arab writer of the 13th 

 century, seams to be the first that mentions Ceylon cinnamon (see Ten. 

 i. 599-600, and Suokl. i. 247). 



2 Couto here repeats the absurd statements of Barros in III. n. i. (p. 33)- 



3 The only excuse for this monstrous and sweeping statement is, 

 that at the time when Couto wrote {circa 1597) the erstwhile protege of 

 the Portuguese and good Catholic, Dom Joao de Austria, was, as the 

 Buddhist king Vimala Dharma Surya, compelling those same Portu- 

 guese to pour out their blood and treasure in a vain attempt to gain the 

 domination of Ceylon. In VI. vm. vii. (p. 140) Couto makes an exception 

 in favour of King BhuvanekaBahu VII. , that bete noire of the Rajavaliya. 



4 This statement proves that the copy of the Rajavaliya in the posses- 

 sion of the Sinhalese princes who supplied Couto with his information 

 had the usual hiatus after the reign of Parakrama Bahu II. (see Raja- 

 valiya iv. 66). In reality, the reigning king was Vira Bahu or Vijaya 

 Bahu VI. (? 1391-1412), and he it was whom the Chinese general Ching 

 Ho in 1410 carried off captive to China (see Bell's Rep. on Kegalla Dist. 

 91-3 ; Sylvain Levi in Journal Asiatique, 1900, 430, 440). 



