Excerpt from 'Diversions of a Diplomat' By Philip Crowe.

The above book was published in 1956. Mr.Philip Crowe took up duties as American Ambassador to Ceylon in 1953 when Lord Soulbury was the Governor General.It is a very interesting read and the book should be owned by any student of Ceylon History of the 1950s. Below is a short and succinct history of Ceylon from Greek times as given by the author of the above book:-

'...In early historical times, Ceylon was well known to

the Mediterranean world. Megasthenes, Greek Ambas-

sador to the court of the Hindu Chandragupta, who ruled

three centuries before Christ, had heard of the Island and

called it Palaeogoni. In the reign of the Roman Emperor

Claudius (A.D. 41-54), a King of Ceylon sent an embassy

to Rome, and in the second century A.D. Ptolemy, the

astronomer and geographer, engraved his famous map of

Taprobane, as Ceylon was later known. There is reason

to believe that one of the coastal cities of the Island was the

fabled Tarshish with which Solomon used to trade. Coins

of all these countries have been dug up in Ceylon and there

are today many descendants of the Moorish traders who

came in the ninth century.

However, it was not until the early days of the sixteenth

century that Europeans again took an active interest in

Ceylon. On November 15, 1505, the Portuguese Admiral

Dom Louren9o de Almeida landed at Colombo and carved

his nation's arms on the first available rock. His arrival

caused vast admiration and much fear among the inhabit-

ants. According to the Rajavaliya^ the people reported to

King Vira Parakrama Bahu VIII that 'a race of people

with fair skin and comely withal have come. They don

iron jackets and hats of iron ; they eat hunks of stone

(probably hard bread) and drink blood (undoubtedly red

wine) ; they give gold and silver for one fish or a lime.'

Later, the Portuguese envoys called on the king and, having

been promised a tribute of cinnamon, took the king under

Portuguese 'protection'. This was the first move in a

series of alliances, intrigues and wars that were to make

Portugal the dominant power in the Island for the next

one hundred and fifty years...'