The period of the history of Ceylon which is covered by the present work has been already dealt with by me in another book which, inasmuch as it was addressed primarily to the people of that country, assumed in the reader a degree of knowledge which no one who has not resided there for many years can have, and was burdened with a minuteness of detail which, however novel and interesting to the local student, cannot but weary, if not repel, the general reader. And yet the story of the Portuguese in Ceylon is of more than local interest, for it depicts for us a characteristic phase of the beginning of European expansion in the east. A hundred and fifty three years after the Portuguese first landed in Ceylon they were expelled from the country, leaving the gloomy word Failure writ large over all their actions. That however was not all, for they left the Sinhalese a broken race, with their ancient civilisation brought to the verge of ruin, and their scheme of life well-nigh destroyed.
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