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



439 



danger of being surprised and routed by our people, retired, 

 because he also learnt that the general was sending to succour 

 that tranqueira : and from there he proceeded to the districts 

 of Chilao, leaving at a league from that tranqueira of Bali tote 

 a body of one thousand men, most of them with firelocks, in a 

 tr anqueira that he made in a pass, in order that the people in 

 the adjacent villages collecting there might impede our people 

 in their incursions into those parts, because they were appre- 

 hensive regarding all. The general being advised of this 

 sent to attack them a captain with fifty Portuguese and three 

 hundred lascarins, who put them to rout, entering their 

 tranqueira and killing many. Upon this taking place, the 

 king of Huva at once retired from the parts of Chilao , whither 

 he had proceeded, both because there also he was badly 

 received by our men, and because he feared that the general 

 would send another force against him. 



The tyrant of Candea seeing how badly all his designs had 

 succeeded, and how many men he had lost in those assaults, 

 attributed all to the cowardice of the king of Huva, where- 

 fore he commanded him to return to Candea : and his office, 

 which was that of field-captain-general, he gave to a prince 

 of the blood of the ancient kings 1 , a youth considered to be 

 daring, who, wishing to show the tyrant that he had not been 

 deceived in that appointment, at once moved with all the 

 arrayal and the troops that the king of Huva had commanded 

 against the fortress of Balitote , which the general had already 

 succoured with men and munitions, which he attacked with 

 some firelock skirmishes. And Salvador Pereyra, the captain 

 of it, seeing that the enemy dared not invest it, sallied forth 

 against him with a body of men, and assailed him with such 

 fury, that in a short space of time he put him to the rout, 

 killing more than a hundred, this prince being in the first 

 assault that he attempted as unfortunate as the king of Huva, 

 because he betook himself into the jungle as fearful as the 

 other ; and his followers who escaped, such was their fear, 

 that they did not stop until they were inside Candea. With 

 this the corlas were cleared, only the prince remaining on the 



1 Were it not for the statement of Couto that this new commander- 

 in-chief was of royal blood, we might think that the reference was to 

 the famous " rebel " leader Antonio Barreto, who gave so much trouble 

 to the Portuguese for many years afterwards, and whose fate is 

 recorded by Sa y Menezes (see C A. S. Jl. xi. 510). But Bocarro 

 distinctly says (508) that that man was of " low caste." It is probable, 

 therefore, that it was to this "prince" that the erstwhile Christian 

 lascarin succeeded as field-captain-major of the Kandyan army and 

 prince of Uva. 



