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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XX. 



around the walls of that fortress 1 . And because the bastion 

 of Sao Joao was not more than a fathom above the ground 

 from the foundations, and from it to the sea-shore a distance 

 of one hundred and twenty paces was all level 2 , he ordered at 

 once to wall in this part, which was the most dangerous of 

 all : and such speed was made, that in a fortnight they brought 

 the bastion to a defensible height, for it reached to five fathoms, 

 and they carried on the wall as far as the sea-shore, all in the 

 fortress working at this, the monks taking no repose by day 

 or night. All this fortification from the embrasures upwards 

 was made of very thick mud- walls, with their battlements, 

 and many spikes 3 , and he provided the whole of it with good 

 artillery, because that bastion on one side guards the bay, and 

 on the other very largely commands the campaign 4 . This 

 having been done, the captain ordered the bastion to be 

 enclosed by a ditch, which formed a continuation of the old 

 one, and ended in the sea, and outside the walls he ordered to 

 be placed many beams with planks nailed on them, and all 

 along certain small boats that are called padas 5 lying across, 

 which were to serve as parapets for our people, so that from 

 there they might prevent the elephants' coming and seizing 

 the beams with their trunks. And the bastion of Sao 



1 Cf. supra, p. 154, note 3 . As we have seen, the walls erected in 

 1551 had withstood the assaults of Mayadunne and Raja Sinha in 

 1563 and 1580-1 ; but built, as they were, of mud (taipa), or more 

 probably of cabook, they must have suffered from the effects of the 

 heavy monsoon rains, and consequently needed repairing. In several 

 of his letters at this period King Philip impressed upon the viceroy the 

 importance of fortifying Ceylon adequately, though, at the same time, 

 he grudged the expense involved in the war with Raja Sinha (see 

 Arch. Port.-Or. iii. passim). 



2 This is the first mention by Couto of any of the bastions of the 

 fortress of Columbo (for the full list see infra, pp. 293-7) ; and, owing 

 to the unfortunate defectiveness of his Eighth and Ninth Decades, we 

 are ignorant of the date of their erection. (Bastions were invented by 

 Italian engineers about the middle of the sixteenth century.) As 

 regards the bastion of S. Joao (the name of which still survives in St. 

 John's street), see C. A. S. Jl. xii. 77, 78, 81, &c. 



3 I am doubtful if this is the correct technical rendering of the 

 original conteiras, which appears to mean here iron spikes fixed into 

 the walls for the purpose of additional defence. 



4 Compare what Saar says in the passage referred to in note 2 supra. 

 Couto, it will be noticed, uses the present tense : and in fact things 

 remained pretty much the same until after the Dutch obtained posses- 

 sion of Columbo in 1656. 



5 See supra, p. 207, note 3 . 



