242 



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



[Vol. XX. 



known to the king Dom Sebastiao, he commanded that the 

 money that had been given in those parts should be collected 

 again, and that never again must the king make grants of 

 money that was owing to him 1 : the which I believe did not 

 take effect 2 . 



After Diogo de Mello had left, the viceroy immediately sent 

 off some foists belonging to private persons with these provi- 

 sions 3 : ten thousand xerafins in money, three hundred candis 

 of wheat, eight hundred of rice, two hundred quintals of 

 biscuit, many munitions, cotton cloths, and ether things of 

 that sort 



Dec. VIII., Chap. x. 

 Of the provision that was made this year for Ceylam. 

 In this September of 1565 the viceroy Dom Antao de 

 Noronha sent a galleon to Ceilao, it being again at war 4 , in 



1 Of. supra, p. 166, note 3 . 



2 This is proved by references to the subject in the royal letters 

 cited in note 6 , p. 241 ; and that the extortion went on until Dharmapala's 

 death is evident from what we read in a royal letter of 10 March 

 1598, printed in Arch. Port.-Or. iii. 857. 



3 It is not said to what place these were sent, but we may presume 

 it was to Ceylon. 



4 This shows that Raja Sinha had again taken the field, emboldened, 

 doubtless, by the Portuguese confession of weakness in their abandon- 

 ment of Cota. Owing to the irreparable loss of Couto's original 

 Eighth and Ninth Decades, and the unaccountable hiatus in the Bajd- 

 valiya mentioned above, we are left without any details of the events in 

 Ceylon for the next sixteen years, with the exception of the curious 

 episode related in chapters xii.-xiii. below. It was during this 

 period that the Venetian merchant traveller Cesare Federici visited 

 Ceylon ; but in what year he was in Columbo is not clear from his 

 narrative. As the English translation of Federici's book by Hiekocke 

 (published 1588) is full of gross blunders (not to mention misprints), 

 which Hakluyt, in his somewhat amended version (Principal Navigations 

 ii. 225-6), has failed to correct, I here give an accurate translation of that 

 portion of the traveller's narrative that deals with historical events in 

 Ceylon at this period: — " Seilam is a large island, and in my judgment 

 a good deal bigger than Cyprus. On the side that looks towards India 

 on the west is the city of Colombo, a fortress of the Portuguese, but 

 outside its walls is in the hands of the enemies ; only towards the sea 

 has it the port free [the Eng. trans, has ' but without wales (sic) or 

 enimies (!) : it hath towards the sea his (sic) free port']. The lawful 

 king of this island is in Colombo, having been made a Christian and 

 deprived of the kingdom, sustained by the king of Portugal. The 



