Indies, went to Makassar, Malacca and remarried Elisabeth Tribolet on board of a ship and on his way to Ceylon. Baldaeus preached from 1657 to 1658 during Rijckloff van Goens's campaign against the Portuguese in Negapatnam on the Coromandel Coast. The Dutch campaign against the Portuguese began in Jaffna, passing Mannar, Tuticorin and Nagapattinam and ended in South India. These were populated by Tamil Catholics who were converted Hindus. By 1660 the Dutch controlled the whole island except the Kingdom of Kandy and principality of Vanni. When the Dutch occupied the coast of Malabar in 1661, Baldaeus took part. Around 1662 he returned to Ceylon and Baldaeus learned Sanskrit and studied Hinduism. Baldaeus settled in Jaffanapatnam in Northern Ceylon where the Tamil people lived. He learned the Tamil language and documented their life and culture. He was one of the first Europeans to publish at length about the region. He also made drawings and paintings of life in Ahmedabad, a busy trade city in Gujarat, a city he never actually visited. Missionary and ethnologist in South India and Sri Lanka Baldaeus served in Ceylon, both the Dutch Reformed Church as well as the native, formerly Catholic Christians, whom he had almost put the new faith. In the ranks of soldiers in the service of the VOC, there were also many Lutherans, especially German, considered by the pastors as a rival faith and were often sharply attacked in sermons. Baldaeus' parish encompassed the entire coastal area of Sri Lanka, together with the islands and the Tamil southern tip of India, a territory that had been divided by the Portuguese in the 32 parishes, each with a church and a school and cared for by many monks and a Jesuit college. The aftermath of the Portuguese defeat and surrender at Jaffna created a vacuum for Christian preaching. Since the war was brutal with most of the Catholic slain and only 40 to 50 clergymen were among the survivors. For only four Calvinist preachers, this was a Herculean task as they were numerically few. Catholic priests were committed preachers and their knowledge was highly valued. Baldaeus studied their writings and methods. He followed their model and travelled alone from church to church, converting about 12,387 local ex-Catholics to Calvinism. Their religious training was important to him, because to his chagrin, he found the religious education of the locals was very superficial. Tamils were