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



291 



it was carried out before the eyes of the fathers and mothers of 

 those innocents, or martyrs of the devil, whose tears mingled 

 with the warm blood of their children were also offered in sacri- 

 fice. This abominable superstition having been fulfilled, wish- 

 ing to animate all his people for that expedition, he put into 

 their heads that the idols had promised him that they would 

 throw water on the bombards of the Portuguese, so that they 

 should not take fire or do them harm, and that they had assured 

 him of capturing Columbo on that occasion, and of putting into 

 his hands the king Dom Joao who was therein 1 ; and with 

 that he ordered proclamation to be made throughout the 

 whole army that he gave that city to all the soldiers to sack, 

 and that he wanted nothing from it but the church plate and 

 the artillery 2 . And in order that he might be held by his 

 people as a saint, and that they might believe all that he said, 

 he devised diabolical inventions, and hid persons behind the 

 idols 3 , who gave the answers that he wished, and in which 

 they had been instructed : and with this, which those ignorant 

 people did not understand, they held him for a saint, and 

 worshipped him ; and so far did his folly go, that he com- 

 manded many golden images to be made in his name, and 

 ordered them to be distributed throughout all the kingdoms, 

 and to be placed amongst the idols, that adoration should be 

 offered to them even as to these 4 . 



Having done this, he began to set his troops in array, and 

 to divide them according to their method , giving the vanguard 



1 Poor Dharmapala's lot was anything but an enviable one : with 

 Raja Sinha outside seeking his life, and the captain of Columbo 

 and other Portuguese officers bullying and defrauding him, he was 

 truly " between the devil and the deep sea." The summary of a 

 royal letter of 5 February 1588 (which letter is unfortunately illegible 

 through decay), printed in Arch, PorL-Or. iii. (127), shows that at 

 this time Dom Joao was complaining to King Philip of the treatment 

 accorded to him by Joao Correa de Brito and Thome de Sousa de 

 Arronches. It is surprising that he survived his ill-usage so many 

 years. 



2 The manuscript omits " and the artillery," which, in fact, reads 

 rather like an interpolation, since artillery does not come within the 

 purview of soldiers in a sack, but would naturally become the property 

 of the conquering monarch. The wish for the church plate (if really 

 expressed by Raja Sinha) was partly due to his hatred of Christianity 

 as practised by the Portuguese. 



3 Cf. supra, pp. 284-5. 



4 This may or may not be true : I have no confirmation of the 

 statement. Of course the Sinhalese kings claimed divine honours 

 (cf. C. A. S. Jl. xviii. 209, and note 253 ). 



U 2 



