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



247 



had the remotest idea of it 1 : and there went with the ambas- 

 sadors the king of Ceilao's, who was Andre Bayao modeliar 2 ; 

 and sailing with good weather, they made landfall at another 

 port below Cosmi 3 , where they disembarked, and informed 

 the Brama of all that had happened, and of the arrival of the 

 queen, which was a great joy to the king and all the grandees ; 

 and immediately the king dispatched all the ximes* (who are 

 the dukes and grandees) to accompany her, and sent her 

 jewels and very costly stuffs ; and all this people, which was 

 without number , went down the river in many boats, which they 

 call legdes 5 , which are like galleys, all gilded and awninged, 

 and with, silk flags of richly ordered colours ; and that in which 

 the queen was to embark had the awning and cabin all overlaid 

 with gold, and was equipped with beautiful and richly attired 

 women, who rowed better and more in stroke than the galley- 

 slaves of Europe, and of these women the king had many 

 in separate wards, and it is certain that they married one 

 another, and lived in houses two and two like married couples : 

 and I have spoken with several Portuguese who were captives 

 in Siao, and chiefly with one Antonio Toscano 6 , who was my 

 neighbour and wh,o still has sons in Goa, who said that they 

 went many a time to see these wards of the mariner esses, and 

 that it was true that they were married to one another. In 

 this galley that I have been describing the king commanded 



1 It is certainly strange that none of the Portuguese in Colnmbo 

 should have got wind of the affair. 



2 What this man's Sinhalese name was, I do not know. In VI. n. vi. 

 Couto mentions a brave soldier of the same name, and in the account 

 of the siege of Columbo in 1587-8 we read of a Sebastiao and a 

 Jeronymo Bayao, who may have been sons of the mudaliyar's. As 

 Manoel de Sousa Coutinho's father was lord of Bayao, we may assume 

 that captain to have been sponsor to the mudaliyar at his baptism. 



3 In manuscript erroneously " Cosri." On this port see Hob.-Job. 

 s.v. " Cosmin," 



4 In the next chapter we have the form xirms, and in XII. v. iii. 

 Couto gives the singular as xemim. Ralph Fitch (161) has " his noble- 

 men which they call Shemines." The word is Talaing thamin. E. B. 

 Michell's Siamese-English Dictionary has " cha'meun, a superior class 

 of king's pages having the same rank as a phra" 



In printed edition of 1786 lagoas. In V. v. ix. Couto describes the 

 boats as like galleys, with two tiers of oars, and says that they were 

 called chalavegdes. E. B. Michell's Siamese-English Dictionary has 

 " cha'laum, a small sea vessel " (c/. Hob.-Job. s.v. " Chelingo "). 



6 Couto mentions this man again in XII. v. v., whence it appears 

 that in 1594 Toscano was again in Pegu, when he and other Portuguese 

 were made prisoners by the Burmese king. 



