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



241 



vessels 1 : he himself in a galliot, Manuel Luzarte Ticao, Fernao 

 Vas Pinto, Antonio Froes, Fernao Trinchao, Antonio da Costa 

 Travassos , who had come from Columbo 2 . This armada having 

 arrived 3 at that fortress, Diogo de Mello immediately put the 

 business into execution 4 , and went to fetch the king, and with- 

 drew the friars and demolished the temple that they had there ; 

 and left the whole deserted, and transferred all those things to 

 Columbo, where lodgings were prepared for the king 5 , whom 

 ours of Portugal commanded to be very well treated, and 

 ordered that of all the money that was owing to him he should 

 be given every year two thousand xerafinsfor his maintenance 6 , 

 because he wa,s disinherited and without lands from which he 

 might obtain sustenance, and only possessed some villages in the 

 districts about Columbo 7 : and from that time forward the 

 captains of that fortress, and some others that came to its 

 succour, continued to extort from that poor king even what 

 was due to him, for one would ask him for two thousand 

 cruzados as a favour, another for one thousand, and another 

 for five hundred, and thus little by little they went on consum- 

 ing him, all of which the viceroys paid : which becoming 



3 Only one vessel is described. 2 See supra, VII. x. xv„ p. 222. 



3 Perhaps in April 1565. 



4 No time could be lost, as the burst of the south-west monsoon was 

 at hand. 



5 The Rdjdvaliya (73 of Sinh. ed.) says : — " King Dharmapala 

 retired to Kolamba by night. King Raja Sinha having laid waste 

 the city of Kotte returned to Hitavaka. From that day the Portuguese 

 and king Dharmapala resided in Kolontota." (Then occurs a big 

 hiatus in this historical narrative, the events of fifteen years, 1566-80. 

 being entirely unrecorded — a deplorable and unaccountable fact.) 

 Valentyn, whose version of the Rdjdvaliya ends here, says {Ceylon 

 82) :—" The empire of Cotta, as the emperor was driven from there by 

 Raja Singa Rajoe, lasted only 10 years, and he found himself obliged 

 to flee from there with the Portuguese, and to abandon everything." 

 Valentyn adds :— " It is asserted that thus it is found in a certain old 

 writing, and there also noted that this occurred on 15th March, anno 

 1514 (although later)." The year, of course, is absurdly incorrect ; 

 and I doubt if the exodus from Cotta took place earlier than April. With 

 this shameful abandonment by the Portuguese of Cotta its history ended , 

 and now scarcely a vestige remains of the buildings that once adorned 

 it (see paper on ' 5 Alakeswara: his Life and Times," by Mr. E. W.Perera, 

 in C. A. S. Jl. xviii. 281 ff., and of, C. A. S. Jl. x. 152, 170). 



6 Of. supra, p. 167, note x . This pension is referred to in several 

 of the royal letters to the viceroys printed in Arch. Port. -Or. iii. (see 42, 

 180-1,254). 



7 These villages and districts are named in an alvard of 1 3 February 

 1601, printed in Arch. Port.-Or. vi. 737. 



R 36-08 



