Week 17

Encounters of the 1st degree...

"The natives, who first saw them, went to Cotta and informed the king that a new people had arrived, white and beautifully made, who wore iron coats and iron caps, and drank blood and ate stones; who gave a gold coin for a fish or even a lime; and who had a kind of instrument that could produce thunder and lightning, and balls which, put into these instruments, would fly for a great distance, break ramparts, and destroy forts."

[from a description when the Portuguese first arrived in Sri-lanka, 1505]