An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon together With somewhat Concerning Severall Remarkable passages of my life that hath hapned sic since my Deliverance out of Captivity' is a book written by the English trader and sailor Robert Knox in 1681. It describes his experiences some years earlier on the South Asian island now best known as Sri Lanka and provides one of the most important contemporary accounts of 17th century Ceylonese life. Knox spent 19 years on Ceylon after being taken prisoner by King Rajasimha II. Sri Lanka had always been an important port and trading post in the ancient world, and was increasingly frequented by merchant ships from the Middle East, Persia, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia. The islands were known to the first European explorers of South Asia and settled by many groups of Arab and Malay merchants. A Portuguese colonial mission arrived on the island in 1505 headed by Lourenco de Almeida, the son of Francisco de