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



285 



So-and-so, So-and-so ": and thus were named several of those 

 that were present, whom Raju then and there commanded to 

 be impaled, and among them were certain priests 1 , a very 

 abominable thing amongst them and in their law. At other 

 times he took boys of eight or nine years and instructed them 

 very we]], and pretended that the souls of those that he had 

 commanded to be put to death had passed into them, and that 

 they informed him of everything, the which boys the king 

 commanded to be summoned in public, and in the name of the 

 dead they said : " Sire, So-and-so and So-and-so ordered 

 fetishes against you to be interred in such-and-such a place "; 

 and as those that were named were always present, they were 

 then and there put to death, and in these cruelities he spent 

 the whole summer 2 . 



And because he knew that Joao Correa was fortifying 

 himself, he sent several times to ask him why he distrusted 

 his friendship, and wasted on those works the king's money and 

 his own : that he need not go on with the work, as he was 

 his friend ; and at other times he sent to propose to him that 

 he should put to death the king I). Joao 3 , who was in the 

 fortress, and he would give him a sum of money. To all these 

 things Joao Correa always replied to him in a very polite 

 manner, using also caution and pretences, as he likewise did ; 

 and because it was the time for the arrival of the ship that he 

 expected from the Achem, he sent Thome de Sousa de Arronches 

 with the ships that were in the fortress to go and lie in wait for 

 her, of which Raju was presently informed, and he sent to beg 

 him not to send out the armada : and as he understood him, 

 he replied that he was sending it to lie in wait for some Mala- 

 vares, who he was informed had left for that coast ; and for the 

 greater pretence he sent to beg him for letters for the giving of 

 water and wood in all his ports to the ships of the armada, 

 which he sent him with great offers, because he was hoping 

 for the ship. Thome de Sousa cruised about that coast looking 

 out for her until some vessels arrived which brought the news 

 that she had been lost on the coast of Achem without anything 

 being saved from her, which Raju felt extremely ; but in spite 



1 Cf. Bald. Ceylon iii. ; Rep. on Keg. Dist. 50, 63. 



2 The hot season of 1586-7, apparently. 



3 Cf. supra, p. 254, note 2 . From a royal letter printed in Arch. 

 Port.-Or. iii. (119), it would appear that about this time Dharmapala 

 was desirous of marrying a " woman native of the same island." I 

 infer from this that Dona Margarida, daughter of the king of Kandy 

 (see supra, p. 256, note 6 ), was dead ; and that Dharmapala married 

 again is certain, since after his death we find his widow referred to as 

 " Dona Izabel." 



