No. 60, — 1908.] PORTUGUESE HISTORY OF CEYLON. 397 



A large number of the Sitavaka troops 1 accompanied or 

 followed Mannamperuma to Columbo : and at the head of 

 these, together with a force of Portuguese, he attacked and 

 captured, after a three months' siege, the stockade at Raggaha- 

 watta 2 , afterwards assaulting the fortress at Kadudevola, 

 which, however, proved too strong for the assailants, who had 

 to retire baffled to Columbo. The foregoing events took place 

 in the years 1592 and 1593 



Early in 1594 3 another force of Sinhalese and Portuguese, 

 under the command of the captain of Columbo Pedro Homem 

 Pereira, Jayavira Bandara, and D. Juliao de Noronha (who 

 had been sent by D. Jeronimo de Azevedo from the Malabar 

 coast, at the instance of the viceroy, to aid in the conquest of 

 Ceylon 4 ), set out from Columbo with the determination to 

 capture Sitavaka 5 . The tranqueiras of Kadudevola and 

 Malvana were taken by storm, and, after a fierce resistance, 

 the fortress of Gurubevila had to yield, with great loss in killed, 

 wounded, and prisoners. The road thus lay open to Sitavaka, 



1 The Vida de M. de Alb. (i. xxiii.) says " nearly three thousand 

 lascarins "; but a royal letter of 18 February 1595, printed in Arch. 

 Port. -Or. iii. (486), gives the number as " 500 souls." 



2 Rdjdvaliya 96, The royal letter cited in the previous note men- 

 tions the capture by the " Mudiliar Bique Narcimgua " and his men 

 with some Portuguese of the " tranqueira grande " (c/. supra, p. 286, 

 note 6 ). This, however, seems to have been a misapprehension, 

 for the Kadudevola fort was not taken until the next year. Regarding 

 Raggahawatta see C. A. S. Jl. xviii. 271-2 (note 368 ). 



3 Probably at the beginning of March. According to Boc. (46) the 

 generals of Ceylon were accustomed to make two expeditions each year 

 against the Kandyan territories — one in March, the other in September. 



4 The Vidade M. de Alb. in I. xxi. states that D. Juliao was sent with 

 six foists, two hundred soldiers, munitions, and money in 1593 ; whilst 

 in i. xxiii. is recorded the departure of D. Juliao with the six foists, 

 soldiers, and munitions on 20 February 1594. But there can be no 

 doubt that it was in 1594 that the succour was sent, as the letter cited 

 in the two previous notes quotes the viceroy as writing in December 

 1593, that it had been decided in council to send two hundred soldiers 

 in succour ; and we shall find that the expedition in which D. Juliao 

 participated took place in March-May 1594. 



5 For the details here given I am indebted to the Rdjdvaliya (97) 

 and the Vida de M. de Alb. (i. xxiii.). In some particulars the two 

 acco unts^are discrepant . 



