132 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XX. 



Dec. VI., Bk. vm., Chap. iii. 



of how the king of Gota sent to ask him 1 for help 



against Madune. 



He ***** * 



Not many days had elapsed since the governor's arrival 2 , 

 when there came to him an ambassador from the king of Cota, 

 who as vassal of the king of Portugal sent to beg him earnestly 

 to help him, as he was in the utmost danger of losing his king- 

 dom : because his brother Madune, king of Ceitavaca, had 

 taken from him the greater part of it, and had besieged him in 

 the city of Cota, where he was in great danger of perishing 3 ; 

 that that kingdom was his grandson's, to whom the king of 

 Portugal had conceded it, and had proclaimed him in the city 

 of Lisbon as heir to it, and that Madune wished to deprive him 

 of it : wherefore he begged him to help him with a large force, 

 and he would at once give ten thousand cruzados' worth of 

 pepper 4 for the loading of a ship to Portugal, which he would 

 deliver to the captain- major who sliould go there ; and 

 that he would also give as tribute one hundred and fifty bares 

 of cinnamon, besides the three hundred that he already paid 5 , 

 and that he would at once give ten elephants for the service 

 of the dockyards of the fleets of the king of Portugal. 



Having heard the ambassador, the governor brought these 

 matters before a council of the captains and fidalgos, all of 

 whom agreed that help should be given to that king, not only 

 because he was a vassal of the king of Portugal's, and because 

 of the terms that he offered, but also to prevent Madune's 

 becoming ruler of the whole island, whereby he would give 

 great trouble to the state, and the king of Portugal would 

 lose the profits that he got from it. 



1 The governor, Jorge Cabral, 1549-50. 



2 At Cochin, in November 1549. 



3 The Rajavaliya tells us nothing of this, there being a deplorable 

 hiatus in that chronicle of some ten years, 1540-1 to 1550, the only 

 events during that time recorded being an attack by Jayavira on Maya- 

 dunn6's territories in the Four Korales, his defeat by the minister Arya, 

 and the conclusion of peace on his paying an indemnity (Rdjav. 81). 

 The paragraph relating these occurrences is entirely out of its proper 

 place, and I do not know to what year they refer. (The events are also 

 recorded by Valentyn, Ceylon 76.) 



4 This is the first mention of pepper from Ceylon (c/. supra, p. 117). 

 On the importance of pepper as an article of trade in the sixteenth 

 century see my " Discovery of Ceylon by the Portuguese," pp. 287-8. 



6 See supra, V. I. v., p. 73. 



