of the capitulation they were required to be "faithfully delivered over;" and, by Art.XI., all "surveys of the island and its coasts" were required to be surrendered to the captors.[1] But, strange to say, almost the whole of these interesting and important papers appear to have been lost; not a trace of the Portuguese records, so far as I could discover, remains at Colombo; and if any vestige of those of the Dutch be still extant, they have probably become illegible from decay and the ravages of the white ants.[2] [Footnote 1: Amongst a valuable collection of documents presented to the Royal Asiatic Society of London, by the late Sir Alexander Johnston, formerly Chief Justice of Ceylon, there is a volume of Dutch surveys of the Island, containing important maps of the coast and its harbours, and plans of the great works for irrigation in the northern and eastern provinces.] [Footnote 2: _Note to the second edition_ .-- Since the first edition was published, I have been told by a late officer of the Ceylon Government, that many years ago, what remained of the Dutch records were removed from the record-room of the Colonial Office to the cutcherry of the government agent of the western province: where some of them may still be found.] But the loss is not utterly irreparable; duplicates of the Dutch correspondence during their possession of Ceylon are carefully preserved at Amsterdam; and within the last few years the Trustees of the British Museum purchased from the library of the late Lord Stuart de Rothesay the Diplomatic Correspondence and Papers of SEBASTIAO JOZE CARVALHO E MELLO (Portuguese Ambassador at London and Vienna, and subsequently known as the Marquis de Pombal), from 1738 to 1747, including sixty volumes relating to the history of the Portuguese possessions in India and Brazil during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.

Amongst the latter are forty volumes of despatches relative to India entitled _Colleccam Authentica de todas as Leys, Regimentos, Alvaras e mais ordens que se expediram para a India_, _desde o establecimento destas conquistas; Ordenada por proviram de 28 de Marco de 1754_.[1] These contain the despatches to and from the successive Captains-General and Governors of Ceylon, so that, in part at least, the replacement of the records lost in the colony may be effected by transcription.
[Footnote 1: MSS.

Brit Mus.No.

20,861 to 20,900.] Meanwhile in their absence I had no other resource than the narratives of the Dutch and Portuguese historians, chiefly VALENTYN, DE BARROS, and DE COUTO, who have preserved in two languages the least familiar in Europe, chronicles of their respective governments, which, so far as I am aware, have never been republished in any translation.
The present volumes contain no detailed notice of the _Buddhist faith_ as it exists in Ceylon, of the _Brahmanical rites,_ or of the other religious superstitions of the island.

These I have already described in my history of _Christianity in Ceylon._[1] The materials for that work were originally designed to form a portion of the present one; but having expanded to too great dimensions to be made merely subsidiary, I formed them into a separate treatise.