Concerning some other nations, and chiefly European that now live in the island. The Portuguese and Dutch.
Having said all this concerning the English people, it may not be unacceptable to give some account of other whites, who either voluntarily or by constraint inhabit there: and they are besides the English already spoken of; Portuguese, Dutch and French.
But before I enter upon a discourse of any of these, I shall detain my readers a little with another nation inhabiting this land, I mean the Malabars: both because they are strangers and derive themselves from another country; and also because I have had occasion to mention them sometimes in this book.
These Malabars, then, are voluntary inhabitants of the island; and have a country here, though the limits of it are but small. It lies to the northward of the King's coasts, betwixt him and the Hollanders. Corunda Oya parts it from the King's territories. Through this country we passed, when we made our escape. The language they speak is peculiar to themselves; so that a Cingalese cannot understand them, nor they a Cingalese.
They have a Prince over them, called Coilat Wannea, that is independent both of the King of Kandy on the one hand, and of the Dutch on the other: only that he pays an acknowledgment to the Hollanders, who have endeavoured to subdue him by wars, but they cannot yet do it. Yet they have brought him to be a tributary to them, viz.: to pay a certain rate of elephants per annum. The King and this Prince maintain a friendship and correspondence together: and when the King lately sent an army against the Hollanders, this Prince let them pass through his country; and went himself in person, to direct the King's people; when they took one or two forts from them.
