No. 60.— 1908.] cottto : history of ceylon. 



181 



because the king had already had news of those that he had 

 put upon them, when he made all of them captives 1 : and these 

 instructions we cannot find in the whole of this state 2 , they 

 being entirely lost, of which we have many times complained 3 ; 

 but these details we have obtained from old and ancient men. 



Dec. VII., Bk. ix., Chap. i. 



Of the great armada with which the viceroy Dom Constantino set 

 out for J afanapaiao : and of what took place until he arrived 

 there. 



The viceroy Do in Constantino spent the whole of the winter 

 in getting ready the armada which he intended to take to Jaf ana- 

 patao, and in collecting the stores for that expedition 4 : and 

 at the beginning of August [1560] he set afloat all the vessels and 

 fitted out and supplied them with provisions and munitions, 

 and began to make a general payment to all. And already 

 by the beginning of September they were all so far ready, that 

 the viceroy embarked ; and having first made over the govern- 

 ment to Dom Pedro de Meneses the Red, who was captain of 

 Goa, he left an order for the licentiate Belchior Serrao, ven- 

 dor da fazenda, to go and superintend the loading of the ships 6 

 at Cochim, and left him all the powers as regards revenue for 

 anything that might happen. 



* He * * * * * 



While the viceroy was already at the bar giving his last 

 orders before setting sail, it being the 4th of September, there 

 arrived the ship Conceicao, which remained at Mossambique 

 the previous year to winter, and then on the following day 

 there arrived ten or twelve vessels from Chaul and Bacaim to 

 accompany him on that expedition. Amongst others there 

 came by these Dom Pedro Dalmeida, captain of Bacaim, 



1 These events, which took place in 1558, are related by Couto in 

 VII. vn. i. The king of Bisnaga (Vijayanagar) referred to was Rama 

 Raya (see Sewell's Forg. Emp. 193-4). How the proposed transplanta- 

 tion of Christians from Sao Thome succeeded, we shall see in VII. ix. iii. 



2 That is, India, which was always referred to by the Portuguese 

 historians and in official documents under this term (estado). 



3 Throughout his Decades we find Couto again and again making 

 complaint of the absence from the archives at Goa of official documents 

 that ought to have been there. 



4 See supra, VII. vm. x. (p. 180). 



* The ships for Portugal. Four only, of the fleet of six that left 

 Lisbon in April, reached Cochin in November and December. Of two 

 of these we shall read in VII. ix. v. (see p. 202). 



