274 



JOURNAL, B.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. XX. 



tyrant appears not to have seen, in great haste pulled them off, 

 and sent them to him by one of the ministers that was escorting 

 her, telling him that there she sent him these paltry objects, 

 which apparently he had left her through not seeing them ; 

 that he might satiate his ambition as much as he could ; that 

 moreover instead of that she would have sent him her life, 

 if it were not tainted in her with little courage, where women 

 like her ought to show it better ; but that all the time of the 

 life that remained to her she would spend in weeping for the 

 death of the old king 1 her husband and lord, and in begging- 

 justice of God on such a cruel and abominable tyrant, who 

 treated in such a manner a weak woman who had brought him 

 up as a son, and to whom he was such through his father ; 

 and casting her eyes on the ground she went traversing that city, 

 in which for so many years she had been so venerated a lady, 

 in order to see nothing therein. Having been put in the place 

 of banishment, she survived only a short time, because in the 

 end she died of sheer grief. 



Raju seeing himself safe began to make preparations for the 

 siege that he had determined on against the fortress of Columbo, 

 with the determination of either dying in the attack or expel- 

 ling the Portuguese from it. Of all this Joao Correa de Brito, 

 captain of that fortress, was soon advised, and of how Raju 

 had determined on the close of the summer to let loose all his 

 fury with the strength of Ceilao upon those weak walls : and 

 as that fortress was lacking in everything he advised the 

 viceroy in great haste, and dispatched one Tristao Dabreu 

 da Silva with letters to him, in which he begged him to succour 

 him speedily. This man embarked in a tone, and crossed over 

 to the opposite coast of the Fishery, and along it proceeded 

 to Cochim, where he found a vessel for Goa, into which he got, 

 and reached that city at the beginning of April 2 ; and the 

 viceroy, seeing the letters, and the straits in which the fortress 

 was, and how urgent it was for him to send it help, as he was 

 of great courage and spirit, unmindful of how many troubles 

 there were in other parts, and of the needs of the state, at once 

 ordered a ship to be loaded with food and munitions, which he 

 hired from one Domingos Daguiar, because she was at the bar 

 ready to sail, in which he embarked Simao Botelho with forty 

 soldiers ; and as it might be that she could not get over to 

 Ceilao 3 , he ordered to be got ready two rowing vessels with 



1 The printed edition inserts " Madunch." 



2 1586. The murders recorded by Couto appear to have occupied 

 Raja Sinha several years. 



3 In case the south-west monsoon set in. 



