BOOK VIII.

(Ch. i) "This is the voyage which Joramus, the king of the Tyrians ordered Joramus, the priest of Melicarthus, to recount and to engrave on a pillar in the temple of Melicarthus, and Sydyk, the scribe, having four copies, was directed to send them to the Sidonians, the Byblians, the Aradians, and the Berythians. The other copies can nowhere be found, and the pillar lies shattered in the ruins of the temple, but the copy of the Byblians is still left in the Temple of Baaltis, and its words are to this effect."

(Ch. ii.) "Hierbas, the son of Bartophas, and king of the Tyrians, thus addressed Joramus, the priest of Madynus, at the time when figs were first ripe: 'Taking a book and pen, describe all the cities and islands and colonies and the countries of the barbarians, and the forces of them all, and their ships of war and of burthen, and their scythe-armed chariots. For when our ships of war, sailing to the island of Rachius, reached the remotest parts eastward that we knew, the extremities of all lands, and the nations that inhabited them, we discovered things unknown to our ancestors. For our ancestors, sailing only to the islands and the region extending to the west, knew nothing of the countries which we have explored to the east: you will therefore write all these things for the information of posterity.' When having prostrated myself before the king, on his saying these things, and having returned to my own house I wrote as follows:--

* * * * *

(Ch. xvi) ... "To the eastward dwell the Babylonians and Medians and Æthiopians. The city of the Babylonians is flourishing and populous; Media produces white horses; Æthiopia is barren and arid near the sea, and mountainous in the interior. And further to the east is the peninsula of Rachius, whither the ships of Hierbas sailed."

* * * * *

On this narrative of Sanchoniathon it is only necessary to remark that the allusion in ch. ix. to the assistance rendered by the Tyrians to Irenius of Judea, when building his palace, in supplying him with timber and squared stones, is almost literally copied from the passage In the Old Testament (1 Kings, ix. 11), where Hiram is stated to have furnished to Solomon "cedar trees and fir trees," for the building of the Temple.

The cession by Irenius of the city and harbour of Ilotha refers to the resort of the Tyrians to Ezion Greber, or _Eloth_, in the Ælanitic Gulf of the Red Sea, Ib. v. 26, whence they piloted the ships of Solomon, which once in every three years returned with cargoes of gold from Ophir. (Ib. v. 28.)

As to the incidents and observations recorded by the Phoenician travellers during their journey to the interior of Ceylon,--the kings by which it was governed, the natural productions of the various regions, the footprint on Adam's Peak, the incursions of the Malabars, the ascendency of their religion, the absence of camels, the abundance of elephants, and the cultivation of cinnamon,--all these are so palpably imitated from the accounts of Cosmas Indico-pleustes, and the voyages of Arabian mariners, that it is almost unnecessary to point to the parallel passages from which they are taken.

CHAP. II

INDIAN, ARABIAN, AND PERSIAN AUTHORITIES.

On closing the volume of Cosmas, we part with the last of the Greek writers whose pages guide us through the mist that obscures the early history of Ceylon. The religion of the Hindus is based on a system of physical error, so incompatible with the extension of scientific truth, that in their language the term "geography" is unknown.[1] But still it is remarkable as an illustration of the uninquiring character of the people, that the allusions of Indian authors to Ceylon, an island of such magnitude, and so close to their own country, are pre-eminent for absurdity and ignorance. Their "Lanka" and its inhabitants are but the distortion of a reality into a myth. ALBYROUNI, the Arabian geographer, writing in the eleventh century, says that the Hindus at that day thought the island haunted; their ships sailing past it, kept at a distance from its shores; and even within the present century, it was the popular belief on the continent of India that the interior of Ceylon was peopled by demons and monkeys.[2]

[Footnote 1: The Arabians began the study so late, that they, too, had to borrow a word from the Greeks, whence their term "_djagrafiya_."]

[Footnote 2: MOOR'S _Hindu Pantheon_, p. 318. MOOR speaks of an educated Indian gentleman who was attached as Munshi to the staff of Mr. North, Governor of Ceylon, in 1804, and who, on his return to the continent, wrote a history of the island, in which he repeats the belief current among his countryment, that "the interior was not inhabited by human beings of the ordinary shapes."--P. 320.]

But the century in which Cosmos wrote witnessed the rise of a power whose ascendant energy diffused a new character over the policy and literature of the East. Scarcely twenty years elapsed between his death and the birth, of Mahomet--and during the two centuries that ensued, so electric was the influence of Islam, that its supremacy was established with a rapidity beyond parallel, from the sierras of Spain to the borders of China. The dominions of the Khalifs exceeded in extent the utmost empire of the Romans; and so undisputed was the sway of the new religion, that a follower of the Prophet could travel amidst believers of his own faith, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, and from the chain of the Atlas to the mountains of Tartary.

Syria and Egypt were amongst its earliest conquests; and the power thus interposed between the Greeks and their former channels of trade, effectually excluded them from the commerce of India. The Persians and the Arabs became its undisputed masters, and Alexandria and Seleucia declined in importance as Bassora and Bagdad rose to the rank of Oriental emporiums.[1]

[Footnote 1: ROBERTSON was of opinion, that such was the aversion of the Persions to the sea, that "no commercial intercourse took place between Persia and India."--_India_, s. i. p. 9. But this is at variance with the testimony of COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, as well as of HAMZA of Ispahan and others.]

Early in the sixth century, the Persians under Chosroes Nouschirvan held a distinguished position in the East, their ships frequented the harbours of India, and their fleet was successful in an expedition against Ceylon to redress the wrongs done to some of their fellow-countrymen who had settled there for purposes of trade.[1]

[Footnote 1: HAMZA ISPAHANENSIS, _Annal_. vol. ii. c. 2. p. 43. Petropol, 1848, 8vo. REINAUD, _Mémoire sur l' Inde_, p. 124.]

The Arabs, who had been familiar with India before it was known to the Greeks,[1] and who had probably availed themselves of the monsoons long before Hippalus ventured to trust to them, began in the fourth and fifth centuries to establish themselves as merchants at Cambay and Surat, at Mangalore, Calicut, Coulam, and other Malabar ports[2], whence they migrated to Ceylon, the government of which was remarkable for its toleration of all religious sects[3], and its hospitable reception of fugitives.

[Footnote 1: There is an obscure sentence in PLINY which would seem to imply that the Arabs had settled in Ceylon before the first century of our Christian era:--"Regi cultum Liberi patris, _coeteris Arabum_."--Lib. vi. c. 22.]

[Footnote 2: GILDEMEISTER; _Scriptores Arabi de Rebus Indicis_, p. 40.]

[Footnote 3: EDRISI, tom. i p. 72.]

It is a curious circumstance, related by BELADORY, who lived at the court of the Khalif of Bagdad in the ninth century, that an outrage committed by Indian pirates upon some Mahometan ladies, the daughters of traders who had died in Ceylon, and whose families the King Daloopiatissa II., A.D. 700, was sending to their homes in the valley of the Tigris, served as the plea under which Hadjadj, the fanatical governor of Irak, directed the first Mahometan expedition for subjugating the valley of the Indus.[1]

[Footnote 1: The chief of the Indus was the Buddhist Prince Daher, whose capital was at Daybal, near the modern Karachee. The story, as it appears in the MS. of Beladory in the library of Leyden, has been extracted by REINAUD in his _Fragmens Arabes et Persans relatifs á l'Inde_, No. v. p. 161, with the following translation:--

"Sous le gouvernement de Mohammed, le roi de l'ile du Rubis (Djezyret-Alyacout) offrit à Hadjadj des femmes musulmanes qui avaient reçu le jour dans ses états, et dont les pères, livrés à la profession du commerce, étaient morts. Le prince esperuit par là gagner l'amitié de Hadjadj; mais le navire où l'on avait embarqué ces femmes fut attaqué par une peuplade de race Meyd, des environs de Daybal, qui était montóe sur des burques. Les Meyds enlevèrent le navire avec ce qu'il renfermait. Dans cette extrémité, une de ces femmes de la tribu de Yarboua, s'écria: 'Que n'es-tu la, oh Hadjadj!' Cette nouvelle étant parvenue à Hadjadj, il répondit: 'Me voilà.' Aussitót il envoya un députe à Dâher pour l'inviter à faire mettre ces femmes en liberté. Mais Dâher répondit: 'Ce sont des pirates qui ont enlevé ces femmes, et je n'ai aucune autorité sur les ravisseurs.' Alors Hadjadj engagea Obeyd Allah, fils de Nabhan, à faire une expédition contre Daybal."--P. 190.

The "Island of Rubies" was the Persian name for Ceylon, and in this particular instance FERISHTA confirms the identical application of these two names, vol. ii. p. 402. See _Journal Asiat_. vol. xlvi. p. 131, 163; REINAUD, _Mém. sur l'Inde_, p. 180; _Relation des Voyages_, Disc. p. xli ABOULFEDA, _Introd_. vol. i. p. ccclxxxv.; ELPHINSTONE'S _India_, b. v. ch. i, p. 260.]

From the eighth till the eleventh century the Persians and Arabs continued to exercise the same influence over the opulent commerce of Ceylon which was afterwards enjoyed by the Portuguese and Dutch in succession between A.D. 1505, and the expulsion of the latter by the British in A.D. 1796. During this early period, therefore, we must look for the continuation of accounts regarding Ceylon to the literature of the Arabs and the Persians, and more especially to the former, by whom geography was first cultivated as a science in the eighth and ninth centuries under the auspices of the Khalifs Almansour and Almamoun. On turning to the Arabian treatises on geography, it will be found that the Mahometan writers on these subjects were for the most part grave and earnest men who, though liable equally with the imaginative Greeks to be imposed on by their informants, exercised somewhat more caution, and were more disposed to confine their writings to statements of facts derived from safe authorities, or to matters which they had themselves seen.

In their hands scientific geography combined theoretic precision, which had been introduced by their predecessors, with the extended observation incident to the victories and enlarged dominion of the Khalifs. Accurate knowledge was essential for the civil government of their conquests[1]; and the pilgrimage to Mekka, indispensable once at least in the life of every Mahometan[2], rendered the followers of the new faith acquainted with many countries in addition to their own.[3]

[Footnote 1: "La science géographique, comme les autres sciences en général, notammement l'astronomie, commença à se former chez les Arabes, dans la dernière moitié du viii^{e} siècle, et se fixa dans la première moitié du ix^{e}. On fit usage des itinéraires tracés par les chefs des armées conquérantes et des tableaux dressés par les gouveneurs de provinces; en même temps on mit à la contribution les méthodes propagées par les Indians, les Persans, et surtout les Grees; qui avaient apporté le plus de précision dans leurs opérations."--REINAUD, _Introd. Aboulfeda, &c.,_ p. xl.]

[Footnote 2: REINAUD, _Introd. Aboulfeda,_ p. cxxii.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., vol. i. p. xl.]

Hence the records of their voyages, though presenting numerous exaggerations and assertions altogether incredible, exhibit a superiority over the productions of the Greeks and Romans. To avoid the fault of dulness, both the latter were accustomed to enliven their topographical itineraries, not so much by "moving accidents," and "hair-breadth 'scapes," as by mingling fanciful descriptions of monsters and natural phenomena, with romantic accounts of the gems and splendours of the East. Hence from CTESIAS to Sir JOHN MANDEVILLE, every early traveller in India had his "hint to speak," and each strove to embellish his story by incorporating with the facts he had witnessed, improbable reports collected from the representations of others. Such were their excesses in this direction, that the Greeks formed a class of "paradoxical" literature, by collecting into separate volumes the marvels and wonders gravely related by their voyagers and historians.[1]

[Footnote 1: Such are the _Mirabiles Auscultationes_ of ARISTOTLE, the _Incredibilia_ of PALEPHATES, the _Historiarum Mirabilium Collectio_ of ANTIGONUS CARYSTIUS, the _Historiæ Mirabiles_ of APOLLONIUS THE MEAGRE, and the Collections of PHILEGON of Tralles, MICHAEL BELLUS, and many other Greeks of the Lower Empire. For a succinct account of these compilers, see WESTERMAN'S _Hapre [Greek: doxographoi], Scriptores Rerum Mirabilium Græci_ Brunswick, 1830.]

The Arabs, on the contrary, with sounder discretion, generally kept their "travellers' histories" distinct from their sober narratives, and whilst the marvellous incidents related by adventurous seamen were received as materials for the story-tellers and romancers, the staple of their geographical works consisted of truthful descriptions of the countries visited, their forms of government, their institutions, their productions, and their trade.

In illustration of this matter-of-fact character of the Arab topographers, the most familiar example is that known by the popular title of the _Voyages of the_ _two Mahometans[1]_, who travelled in India and China in the beginning of the ninth century. The book professes to give an account of the countries lying between Bassora and Canton; and in its unpretending style, and useful notices of commerce in those seas, it resembles the record, which the merchant ARRIAN has left us in the _Periplus_, of the same trade as it existed seven centuries previously, in the hands of the Greeks. The early portion of the book, which was written A.D. 851, was taken down, from the recital of Soleyman, a merchant who had frequently made the voyages he describes, at the epoch when the commerce of Bagdad, under the Khalifs, was at the height of its prosperity. The second part was added sixty years later, by Abou-zeyd Hassan, an amateur geographer, of Bassora (contemporary with Massoudi), from the reports of mariners returning from China, and is, to a great extent, an amplification of the notices supplied by Soleyman.

[Footnote 1: It was first published by RENAUDOT in 1718, and from the unique MS., now in the Bibliothèque impériale of Paris, and again by REINAUD in 1845, with a valuable discourse prefixed on the nature and extent of the Indian trade prior to the tenth century.--_Relation des Voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans l'Inde et Chine dans le IX'e Siècle, &c._ 2 vols. 18mo. Paris, 1845.]

SOLEYMAN describes the sea of Herkend, as it lay between the Laccadives and Maldives[1], on the west, and swept round eastward by Cape Comorin and Adam's Bridge to Ceylon, thus enclosing the precious fishery for pearls. In Serendib, his earliest attention was devoutly directed to the sacred footstep on Adam's Peak; in his name for which, "_Al-rohoun,"_ we trace the Buddhist name for the district, Rohuna, so often occurring in the _Mahawanso_.[2] This is the earliest notice of the Mussulman tradition, which associates the story of Adam with Ceylon, though it was current amongst the Copts in the fourth and fifth centuries.[3] On all sides of the mountain, he adds, are the mines of rubies, hyacinths, and other gems; the interior produces aloes; and the sea the highly valued chank shells, which served the Indians for trumpets.[4] The island was subject to two kings; and on the death of the chief one his body was placed on a low carriage, with the head declining till the hair swept the ground, and, as it was drawn slowly along, a female, with a bunch of leaves, swept dust upon the features, crying: "Men, behold your king, whose will, but yesterday, was law! To-day, he bids farewell to the world, and the Angel of Death has seized his spirit. Cease, any longer, to be deluded by the shadowy pleasures of life." At the conclusion of this ceremony, which lasted for three days, the corpse was consumed on a pyre of sandal, camphor, and aromatic woods, and the ashes scattered to the winds.[5] The widow of the king was sometimes burnt along with his remains, but compliance with the custom was not held to be compulsory.

[Footnote 1: The _"Divi"_ of Ammianus Marcellinus, who along with the Singhalese "_Selendivi_" sent ambassadors to the Emperor Julian, l xxii. c. 7.]

[Footnote 2: A portion of the district near Tangalle is known to the present day as "Rouna."--_Mahawanso_, ch. ix. p. 57; ch. xxii. p. 130, &c.]

[Footnote 3: See the account of Adam's Peak, Vol. II. Pt. VII. ch. ii.]

[Footnote 4: ABOU-ZEYD, _Relation, &c._, vol. i. p. 5.]

[Footnote 5: _lb_., p. 50. The practice of burning the remains of the kings and of persons of exalted rank, continued as long as the native dynasty held the throne of Kandy.--See KNOX's _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, A.D. 1681, Part iii. c. ii.]

Such is the account of SOLEYMAN, but, in the second part of the manuscript, ABOU-ZEYD, on the authority of another informant, IBN WAHAB, who had sailed to the same countries, speaks of the pearls of Ceylon, and adds, regarding its precious stones, that they were obtained in part from the soil, but chiefly from those points of the beach at which the rivers flowed into the sea and to which the gems are carried down by the torrents from the hills.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., vol. i. p. 127.]

ABOU-ZEYD describes the frequent conventions of the heads of the national religion, and the attendance of scribes to write down from their dictation the doctrines of Buddhism, the legends of its prophets, and the precepts of its law. This statement has an obvious reference to the important events recorded in the _Mahawanso_[1] of the reduction of the tenets, orally delivered by Buddha, to their written form, as they appear in the _Pittakatayan_; to the translation of the _Atthakatha_, from Singhalese into Pali, in the reign of Mahanamo, A.D. 410-432; and to the singular care displayed, at all times, by the kings and the priesthood, to preserve authentic records of every event connected with the national religion and its history.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii. p. 207; ch. xxxvii. p. 252.]

ABOU-ZEYD adverts to the richness of the temples of the Singhalese, and to the colossal dimensions of their statues, and dwells with particularity on their toleration of all religious sects as attested by the existence there, in the ninth century, of a sect of Manichæans, and a community of Jews.[1]

[Footnote 1: It was to Ceylon that the terrified worshippers of Siva betook themselves in their flight, when Mahmoud of Ghuznee smote the idol and overthrew the temple of Somnaut, A.D. 1025. (FERISHTA, transl. by Briggs, vol. i. p. 71; REINAUD, _Introd. to_ ABOULFEDA, vol. i. p. cccxlix. _Mémoires sur l'Inde_, p. 270.) Twenty years previously, when the same orthodox invader routed the schismatic Carmathians at Moultan, the fugitive chief of the Sheahs found an asylum in Ceylon. (REINAUD, _Journ. Asiat_., vol. xlv. p. 283; vol. xlvi. p. 129.) The latter circumstance serves to show that the Mahometans in Ceylon have not been uniformly Sonnees, and it may probably throw light on a fact of much local interest connected with Colombo. There formerly stood there, in the Mahometan Cemetery, a stone with an ancient inscription in Cufic characters, which no one could decipher, but which was said to record the virtues of a man of singular virtue, who had arrived in the island in the tenth century. About the year 1787 A.D., one of the Dutch officials removed the stone to the spot where he was building, "and placed it where it now stands, at one of the steps to his door." This is the account given by Sir Alexander Johnston, who, in 1827, sent a copy of the inscription to the Royal Asiatic Society of London. GILDEMEISTER pronounces it to be written in Carmathic characters, and to commemorate an Arab who died A.D. 848. "Karmathacis quæ dicuntur literis exarata viro cuidam Arabo Mortuo, 948 A.D. posita," _Script. Arabi de Rebus Indicis_, p. 59. A translation of the inscription by Lee was published in _Trans, Roy. Asiat. Soc._, vol. i. p. 545, from which it appears that the deceased, Khalid Ibn Abou Bakaya, distinguished himself by obtaining "security for religion, with other advantages, in the year 317 of the Hejira." LEE was disposed to think that this might be the tomb of the Imaum Abu Abd Allah; who first taught the Mahometans the route by which pilgrims might proceed from India to the sacred footstep on Adam's Peak. But besides the discrepancy of the names, the Imaum died in the year A.D. 953, and interred at Shiraz, where Ibn Batata made a visit to his tomb. (_Travels_, transl. DEFRÉMERY, &c., tom. ii. p. 79.)

EDRISI, in his Geography writing in the twelfth century, confirms the account of Abou-zeyd as to the toleration of all sects in Ceylon, and illustrates it by the fact, that of the sixteen officers who formed the council of the king, four were Buddhists, four Mussulmans, four Christians, and four Jews.--GILDEMEISTER, _Script. Arabi_, &c., p. 53; EDRISI, 1 clim. sec. 6.]

Ibn Wahab, his informant, appears to have looked back with singular pleasure to the delightful voyages which he had made through the remarkable still-water channels, elsewhere described, which form so peculiar a feature in the seaborde of Ceylon, and to which the Arabs gave the obscure term of "gobbs."[1] Here months were consumed by the mariners, amidst flowers and overhanging woods, with the enjoyments of abundant food and exhilarating draughts of arrack flavoured with honey. The natives of the island were devoted to pleasure, and their days were spent in cock-fighting and games of chance, into which they entered with so much eagerness as to wager the joints of their fingers when all else was lost.

[Footnote 1: "_Aghbah_," Arab. For an account of those of Ceylon, see Vol. I. Pt I. ch. i. p. 42. The idea entertained by the Arabs of these Gobbs, will be found in a passage from Albyrouni, given by REINAUD, _Fragmens Arabes_, &c., 119, and _Journ. Asiat_. vol. xlv. p. 201. See also EDRISI, _Geog_., tom. i. p. 73.]

But the most interesting passages in the narrative of Abou-zeyd are those which allude to the portion of Ceylon which served as the emporium for the active and opulent trade of which the island was then, in every sense of the word, the centre. Gibbon, on no other ground than its "capacious harbour," pronounces Trincomalie to be the port which received and dismissed the fleets of the East and West.[1] But the nautical grounds are even stronger than the historical for regarding this as improbable;--the winds and the currents, as well as its geographical position, render Trincomalie difficult of access to vessels coming from the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf; and it is evident from the narrative of Soleyman and Ibn Wahab, that ships availing themselves of the monsoons to cross the Indian Ocean, crept along the shore to Cape Comorin; and passed close by Adam's Bridge to reach their destined ports.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Decline and Fall_, ch. xl.]

[Footnote 2: ABOU-ZEYD, vol. i. p. 128; REINAUD, _Discours; &c._, pp. lx.--lxix.; _Introd._ ABOULFEDA, p. cdxii.]

An opinion has been advanced by Bertolacci that the entrepôt was Mantotte, at the northern extremity of the Gulf of Manaar. Presuming that the voyages both ways were made through the Manaar channel, he infers that the ships of Arabia and India, rather than encounter the long delay of waiting for the change of the monsoon to effect the passage, would prefer to "flock to the Straits of Manaar, and those which, from their size, could not pass the shallow water, would be unloaded, and their merchandise trans-shipped into other vessels, as they arrived from the opposite coast, or deposited in stores to await an opportunity of conveyance."[1] Hence Mantotte, he concludes, was the station chosen for such combined operations.

[Footnote 1: BERTOLACCI'S _Ceylon_, pp. 18,19.]

But Bertolacci confines his remarks to the Arabian and Indian crafts alone: he leaves out of consideration the ships of the largest size called in the _Periplus_ [Greek: kolandiophônta], which kept up the communication between the west and east coast of India, in the time of the Romans, and he equally overlooks the great junks of the Chinese, which, by aid of the magnetic compass[1], made bold passages from Java to Malabar, and from Malabar to Oman,--vessels which (on the authority of an ancient Arabic MS.) Reinaud says carried from four to five hundred men, with arms and naphtha, to defend themselves against the pirates of India.[2]

[Footnote 1: The knowledge of the mariner's compass probably possessed by the Chinese prior to the twelfth century, is discussed by KLAPROTH in his "_Lettre à M. le Baron Humboldt sur l'invention de la boussole_." Paris, 1834.]

[Footnote 2: See the _"Katab-al-adjajab_," probably written by MASSOUDI. REINAUD, _Mémoires sur l'Inde_, p. 200; _Relation et Discours_, pp. lx. lxviii.; ABOULFEDA, _Introd_. cdxii. May not this early mention of the use of "naphtha" by the Chinese for burning the ships of an enemy, throw some light on the disquisitions adverted to by GIBBON, ch. lii., as to the nature of "the _Greek fire_," so destructive to the fleets of their assailants during the first and second siege of Constantinople in the seventh and eighth centuries? GIBBON says that the principal ingredient was naphtha, and that the Greek emperor learned the secret of its composition from a Syrian who deserted from the service of the Khalif. Did the Khalif acquire the knowledge from the Chinese, whose ships, it appears, were armed with some preparation of this nature in their voyages to Bassora?]

On this point we have the personal testimony of the Chinese traveller Fa Hian, who at the end of the fourth century sailed direct from Ceylon for China, in a merchant vessel so large as to accommodate two hundred persons, and having in tow a smaller one, as a precaution against dangers by sea[1]:--and Ibn Batuta saw, at Calicut, in the fourteenth century, junks from China capable of accommodating a thousand men, of whom four hundred were soldiers, and each of these large ships was followed by three smaller.[2] With vessels of such magnitude, it would be neither expedient nor practicable to navigate the shallows in the vicinity of Manaar; and besides, Mantotte, or, as it was anciently called, _Mahatitta_ or _Maha-totta_, "the great ferry," although it existed as a port upwards of four hundred years before the Christian era, was at no period an emporium of commerce. Being situated so close to the ancient capital, Anarajapoora, it derived its notoriety from being the point of arrival and departure of the Malabars who resorted to the island; and the only trade for which it afforded facilities was the occasional importation of the produce of the opposite coast of India.[3] It is not only probable, but almost certain that during the middle ages, and especially prior to the eleventh century, when the trade with Persia and Arabia was at its height, Mantotte afforded the facilities indicated by Bertolacci to the smaller craft that availed themselves of the Paumbam passage; but we have still to ascertain the particular harbour which was the centre of the more important commerce between China and the West. That harbour I believe to have been Point de Galle.

[Footnote 1: _Fo[)e]-kou[)e]-ki_, ch. xl. p. 359). In a previous passage, FA HIAN describes the large vessels in which the trade was carried between Tamlook, on the Hoogly, and Ceylon:--"A cette époque, des marchands, se mettant en mer avec de grands vaisseaux, firent route vers le sud-ouest; et au commencement de l'hiver, le vent étant favorable, après une navigation de quatorze nuits et d'autant de jours, on arriva au _Royaume des Lions_."--_Ibid_. chap. xxxvi. p. 328.]

[Footnote 2: IBN BATUTA, Lee's translation, p. 172.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 51; ch. xxv. p. 155; ch. xxxv. p. 217.]

Abou-zeyd describes the rendezvous of the ships arriving from Oman, where they met those bound for the Persian Gulf, as lying half-way between Arabia and China. "It was the centre," he says, "of the trade in aloes and camphor, in sandal-wood, ivory and lead."[1] This emporium he denominates "Kalah," and when we remember that lie is speaking of a voyage which he had not himself made, and of countries then very imperfectly known to the people of the West, we shall not be surprised that he calls it an island, or rather a peninsula.

[Footnote 1: ABOU-ZEYD, _Relation, &c._, vol. i. p. 93; REINAUD, _Disc._ p. lxxiv.]

According to him, it was at that period subject to the Maharaja of Zabedj, the sovereign of a singular kingdom of which little is known, but which appears to have been formed about the commencement of the Christian era; and which, in the eighth and ninth centuries, extended over the groups of islands south and west of Malacca, including Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, which had become the resort of a vast population of Indians, Chinese, and Malays.[1] The sovereign of this opulent empire had brought under his dominion the territory of the King of Comar, the southern extremity of the Dekkan[2], and at the period when Abou-zeyd wrote, he likewise claimed the sovereignty of "Kalah."

[Footnote 1: _Journ. Asiat._ vol. xlix. p. 206; ELPHINSTONE's _India_, b. iii. ch. x. p. 168; REINAUD, _Mémoires sur l'Inde_, p. 39; _Introd._ ABOULFEDA, p. cccxc. Baron Walckenaer has ascertained, from the puranas and other Hindu sources, that the Great Dynasty of the Maharaja continued till A.D. 628, after which the islands were sub-divided into numerous sovereignties. See MAJOR's _Introduction to the Indian Voyages in the Fifteenth Century,_ in the _Hakluyt Soc. Publ._ p. xxvii.]

[Footnote 2: MASSOUDI relates the conquest of the kingdom of Comar by the Maharaja of Zabedj, nearly in the same words as it is told by Abou-zeyd; GILDEMEISTER, _Script. Arab_., pp. 145, 146. REINAUD. _Memoires sur l'Inde_, p. 225.]

This incident is not mentioned in the Singhalese chronicles, but their silence is not to be regarded as conclusive evidence against its probability; the historians of the Hindus ignore the expedition of Alexander the Great, and it is possible that those of Ceylon, indifferent to all that did not directly concern the religion of Buddha, may have felt little interest in the fortunes of Galle, situated as it was at the remote extremity of the island, and in a region that hardly acknowledged a nominal allegiance to the Singhalese crown.

The assertion of Abou-zeyd as to the sovereignty of the Maharaja of Zabedj, at Kalah, is consistent with the statement of Soleyman in the first portion of the work, that "the island was in subjection to two monarchs;"[1] and this again agrees with the report of Sopater to Cosmas Indico-pleustes, who adds that the king who possessed the hyacinth was at enmity with the king of the country in which were the harbour and the great emporium.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Relation_, vol. i. p. 6.]

[Footnote 2: [Greek: Duo ie basileis eisin en tê nêsô enantioi allêlôn, ho eis echôn ton huakinthon, kai d eteros to meros to allo en ps esti emporion kai hê lêinê.]

COSMAS INDIC.]

But there is evidence that the subjection of this portion of Ceylon to the chief of the great insular empire was at that period currently believed in the East. In the a "_Garsharsp-Namah_" a Persian poem of the tenth century, by Asedi, a manuscript of which was in the possession of Sir William Ouseley, the story turns on a naval expedition, fitted out by Delak, whose dominions extended from Persia to Palestine, and despatched at the request of the Maharaja against Baku, the King of Ceylon, and in the course of the narrative, Garsharsp and his fleet reach their destination at Kalah, and there achieve a victory over the "Shah of Serendib."[1]

[Footnote 1: OUSELEY'S _Travels_, vol. i. p. 48.]

It must be observed, that one form of the Arabic letter K is sounded like G, so that Kalah would be pronounced _Gala_.[1] The identity, however, is established not merely by similarity of sound, but by the concurrent testimony of Cosmas and the Arabian geographers[2], as to the nature and extent of the intercourse between China and Persia, statements which are intelligible if referred to that particular point, but inapplicable to any other.

[Footnote 1: _Kalah_ may possibly be identical with the Singhalese word _gala_, which means an "enclosure," and the deeply bayed harbour of Galle would serve to justify the name. _Galla_ signifies a rock, and this derivation would be equally sustained by the natural features of the place, and dangerous coral reefs which obstruct the entrance to the port.]

[Footnote 2: DULAURIER, in the _Journal Asiatique_ for Sept. 1846, vol. xlix. p. 209, has brought together the authorities of Aboulfeda, Kazwini, and others to show that Kalah be situated in Ceylon, and he has combated the conjecture of M. Alfred Maury that it may be identical with Kedsh in the Malay Peninsula.--REINAUD, _Relation, &c. Disc._, pp. xli.--lxxxiv., _Introd._ ABOULFEDA, p. ccxviii.]

Coupled with these considerations, however, the identity of name is not without its significance. It was the habit of the Singhalese to apply to a district the name of the principal place within it; thus Lanka, which in the epic of the Hindus was originally the capital and castle of Ravana, was afterwards applied to the island in general; and according to the _Mahawanso_, Tambapani, the point of the coast where Wijayo landed, came to designate first the wooded country that surrounded it, and eventually the whole area of Ceylon.[1] In the same manner _Galla_ served to describe not only the harbour of that name, but the district north and east of it to the extent of 600 square miles, and De Barros, De Couto, and Ribeyro, the chroniclers of the Portuguese in Ceylon, record it as a tradition of the island, that the inhabitants of that region had acquired the name of the locality, and were formerly known as "Gallas."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 50.]

[Footnote 2: A notice of this tribe will be found in another place. See Vol. II. Pt. VII. ch. ii.]

Galle therefore, in the earlier ages, appears to have occupied a position in relation to trade of equal if not of greater importance than that which attaches to it at the present day. It was the central emporium of a commerce which in turn enriched every country of Western Asia, elevated the merchants of Tyre to the rank of princes, fostered the renown of the Ptolemies, rendered the wealth and the precious products of Arabia a gorgeous mystery[1], freighted the Tigris with "barbaric pearl and gold," and identified the merchants of Bagdad and the mariners of Bassora with associations of adventure and romance. Yet, strange to say, the native Singhalese appear to have taken no part whatever in this exciting and enriching commerce; their name is never mentioned in connection with the immigrant races attracted by it to their shores, and the only allusions of travellers to the indigenous inhabitants of the island are in connection with a custom so remarkable and so peculiar as at once to identify the tribes to whom it is ascribed with the remnant of the aboriginal race of Veddahs, whose descendants still haunt the forests in the east of Ceylon.

[Footnote 1: " ... intactis opulentior Thesauris Arabum, et divitis Indiæ." HORACE.]

Such is the aversion of this untamed race to any intercourse with civilised life, that when in want of the rude implements essential to their savage economy, they repair by night to the nearest village on the confines of their hunting-fields, and indicating by well-understood signs and models the number and form of the articles required, whether arrow-heads, hatchets, or cloths, they deposit an equivalent portion of dried deer's flesh or honey near the door of the dealer, and retire unseen to the jungles, returning by stealth within a reasonable time, to carry away the manufactured articles, which they find placed at the same spot in exchange.

This singular custom has been described without variation by numerous writers on Ceylon, both in recent and remote times. To trace it backwards, it is narrated, nearly as I have stated it, by Robert Knox in 1681[1]; and it is confirmed by Valentyn, the Dutch historian of Ceylon[2]; as well as by Ribeyro, the Portuguese, who wrote somewhat earlier.[3] Albyrouni, the geographer, who in the reign of Mahomet of Ghuznee, A.D. 1030, described this singular feature in the trade with the island, of which he speaks under the name of Lanka, says that it was the belief of the Arabian mariners that the parties with whom they held their mysterious dealings were demons or savages.[4]

[Footnote 1: KNOX, _Historical Relation, &c._, part iii. ch. i. p. 62.]

[Footnote 2: VALENTYN, _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_, ch. iii. p. 49.]

[Footnote 3: "Lorsqu'ils ont besoin de haches on de flèches, ils font un modèle avec des feuilles d'arbre, et vont la nuit porter ce modèle, et la moitié d'un cerf on d'un sanglier, à la porte d'un armurier, qui voyant le matin cette viande penduë à sa porte, sçait ce que cela veut dire: il travaille aussi-tôt et 3 jours après il pend les flêches ou les haches au même endroit où étoit la viande, et la nuit suivante le Beda les vient prendre."--RIBEYRO, _Hist. de Ceylan_, A.D. 1686, ch. xxiv. p. 179.]

[Footnote 4: "Les marins se réunissent pour dire que lorsque les navires sont arrivés dans ces parages, quelques uns de l'équipage montent sur des chaloupes et descendent à terre pour y déposer, soit de l'argent, soit des objets utiles à la personne des habitans, tels que des pagnes, du sel, etc. Le lendemain, quand ils reviennent, ils trouvent à la place de l'argent des pagnes et du sel, une quantité de girofle d'une valeur égale. On ajoute que ce commerce se fait avec des génies, ou, suivant d'autres; avec des hommes restés à l'état sauvage."--ALBYROUNI, _transl. by_ REINAUD, _Introd. to_ ABOULFEDA, sec. iii. p. ccc. See also REINAUD, _Mém. sur l'Inde_, p. 343. I have before alluded (p. 538, _n_.) to the treatise _De Moribus Brachmanorum_, ascribed to Palladius, one version of which is embodied in the spurious Life of Alexander the Great, written by the Pseudo-Callisthenes. In it the traveller from Thebes, who is the author's informant, states, that when in Ceylon, he obtained pepper from the Besadæ, and succeeded in getting so near them as to be able to describe accurately their appearance, their low stature and feeble configuration, their large heads and shaggy uncut hair,--a description which in every particular agrees with the aspect of the Veddahs at the present day. His expression that he succeeded in "getting near" them, [Greek: ertasa engus tôn kaloumenôn Besadôn] shows their propensity to conceal themselves even when bringing the articles which they had collected in the woods to sell.--PSEUDO-CALLISTHENES, lib. iii. ch. vii. Paris, 1846, p. 103.]

Concurrent testimony, to the same effect, is found in the recital of the Chinese Buddhist, Fa Hian, who in the third century describes, in his travels, the same strange peculiarity of the inhabitants in those days, whom he also designates "demons," who deposited, unseen, the precious articles which they come down to barter with the foreign merchants resorting to their shores.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Les marchands des autre royaumes y faisaient le commerce: quand le temps de ce commerce était venu, les génies et les démons ne paraissaient pas; mais ils mettaient en avant des choses précieuses dont ils marquaient le juste prix,--s'il convenait aux marchands, ceuxci l'acquittaient et prenaient le marchandise."--FA HIAN, _Foe[)e]-kou[)e]-ki. Transl._ RÉMUSAT, ch. xxxviii. p. 332

There are a multitude of Chinese authorities to the same effect. One of the most remarkable books in any language is a Chinese Encyclopædia which under the title of _Wen-hian-thoung-khao_, or "_Researches into ancient Monuments_," contains a history of every art and science form the commencement of the empire to the era of the author MA-TOUAN-LIN, who wrote in the thirteenth century. M. Stanislas Julien has published in the _Journal Asiatique_ for July 1836 a translation of that portion of this great work which has relation to Ceylon. It is there stated of the aborigines that when "les marchands des autres royaumes y venaient commercer, _ils ne laissaient pas voir leurs corps_, et montraient au moyen de pierres précieuses le prix que pouvaient valoir les merchandises. Les marchands venaient et en prenaient une quantité équivalente à leurs marchandises."--_Journ. Asiat._ t. xxviii. p. 402; xxiv. p. 41. I have extracts from seven other Chinese works, written between the seventh and the twelfth centuries, in all of which there occurs the same account of Ceylon,--that it was formerly supposed to be inhabited by dragons and demons, and that when "merchants from all nations come to trade with the, they are invisible, but leave their precious wares spread out with an indication of the value set on them, and the Chinese take them at the prices stipulated."--_Leang-shoo_, "History of the Leang Dynasty," A.D. 630, b. liv. p. 13. _Nân-shè_, "History of the Southern Empire," A.D. 650, p. xxxviii. p. 14. _Jung-teen_, "Cyclopædia of History," A.D. 740, b. cxciii. p. 8. The _Tae-pîng_, a "Digest of History," compiled by Imperial command, A.D. 983, b. dccxciii. p. 9. _Tsih-foo-yuen-kwei_, the "Great Depositary of the National Archives," A.D. 1012, b. cccclvi. p. 21. _Sin-Jang-shoo_, "New History of the Tang Dynasty," A.D. 1060, b. cxlvi. part ii. p. 10. _Wan heen-túng-Kwan_, "Antiquarian Researches," A.D. 1319, b. cccxxxviii. p. 24.]

The chain of evidence is rendered complete by a passage in Pliny, which, although somewhat obscure (facts relating to the Seres being confounded with statements regarding Ceylon), nevertheless serves to show that the custom in question was then well known to the Singhalese ambassadors sent to the Emperor Claudius, and was also familiar to the Greek traders resorting to the island. The envoys stated, at Rome, that the habit of the people of their country was, on the arrival of traders, to go to "the further side of some river where wares and commodities are laid down by the strangers, and if the natives list to make exchange, they have them taken away, and leave other merchandise in lieu thereof, to content the foreign merchant."[1]

[Footnote 1: PLINY, _Nat. Hist_., lib. vi. ch. xxiv. Transl. Philemon Holland, p. 130. This passage has been sometimes supposed to refer to the Seræ, but a reference to the text will confirm the opinion of MARTIANUS and SOLINUS, that Pliny applies it to the Singhalese; and that the allusion to red hair and grey eyes, "rutilis comis" and "cæruleis oculis" applies to some northern tribes whom the Singhalese had seen in their overland journeys to China, "Later travellers," says COOLEY, "have likewise had glimpses, on the frontiers of India, of these German features; but nothing is yet known with certainty of the tribe to which they properly belonged."--_Hist. Inland and Maritime Discovery_, vol. i. p. 71.]

The fact, thus established, of the aversion to commerce, immemorially evinced by the southern Singhalese, and of their desire to escape from intercourse with the strangers resorting to trade on their coasts, serves to explain the singular scantiness of information regarding the interior of the island which is apparent in the writings of the Arabians and Persians, between the eighth and thirteenth centuries. Their knowledge of the coast was extensive, they were familiar with the lofty mountain which served as its landmark, they dwell with admiration on its productions, and record with particularity the objects of commerce which were to be found in the island; but, regarding the Singhalese themselves and their social and intellectual condition, little, if any, real information is to be gleaned from the Oriental geographers of the middle ages.

ALBATENY and MASSOUDI, the earliest of the Arabian geographers[1], were contemporaries of Abou-zeyd, in the ninth century, and neither adds much to the description of Ceylon, given in the narratives of "_The two Mahometans_." The former assigns to the island the fabulous dimensions ascribed to it by the Hindus, and only alludes to the ruby and the sapphire[2] as being found in the rivers that flow from its majestic mountains. MASSOUDI asserts that he visited Ceylon[3], and describes, from actual knowledge, the funeral ceremonies of a king, and the incremation of his remains; but as these are borrowed almost verbatim from the account given by Soleyman[4], there is reason to believe that he merely copied from Abou-zeyd the portions of the "_Meadows of Gold_"[5] that have relation to Ceylon.

[Footnote 1: Probably the earliest allusion to Ceylon by any Arabian or Persian author, is that of Tabari, who was born in A.D. 838; but he limits his notices to an exaggerated account of Adam's Peak, "than which the whole world does not contain a mountain of greater height."--OUSELLY'S _Travels_, vol i. p. 34, _n_.]

[Footnote 2: "Le rubis rouge, et la pierre qui est couleur de ciel." ALBATENY, quoted by Reinaud, _Introd_. ABOULFEDA p. ccclxxxv.]

[Footnote 3: MASSOUDI in Gildemeister, _Script. Arab_. p. 154. Gildemeister discredits the assertion of Massoudi, that he had been in Ceylon. (_Ib._ p. 154, _n_.) He describes Kalah as an island distinct from Serendib.]

[Footnote 4: ABOU-ZEYD, _Relation, &c_., p. 50.]

[Footnote 5: A translation of MASSOUDI'S _Meadows of Gold_ in English was begun by Dr. Sprenger for the "Oriental Translation Fund," but it has not advanced beyond the first volume, which was published in 1841.]

In the order of time, this is the place to allude to another Arabian mariner, whose voyages have had a world-wide renown, and who, more than any other author, ancient or modern, has contributed to familiarise Europe with the name and wonders of Serendib. I allude to "Sindbad of the Sea," whose voyages were first inserted by Galland, in his French translation of the "_Thousand-and-one Nights_." Sindbad, in his own tale, professes to have lived in the reign of the most illustrious Khalif of the Abbassides,--

"Sole star of all that place and time;-- And saw him, in his golden prime, The good Haroun Alraschid."

But Haroun died, A.D. 808, and Sindbad's narrative is so manifestly based on the recitals of Abou-zeyd and Massoudi, that although the author may have lived shortly after, it is scarcely possible that he could have been a contemporary of the great ruler of Bagdad.[1]

[Footnote 1: REINAUD notices the _Ketab-ala-jayb_, or "Book of Wonders," of MASSOUDI, as one of the works whence the materials of Sindbad's Voyages were drawn. (_Introd_. ABOULFEDA, vol. i. p. lxxvii.) HOLE published in 1797 A.D. his learned _Remarks on the Origin of Sindbad's Voyages_, and in that work, as well as in LANGLE'S edition of Sindbad; and in the notes by LANE to his version of the "_Arabian Nights' Entertainment_," Edrisi, Kazwini, and many other writers are mentioned whose works contain parallel statements. But though Edrisi and Kazwini wrote in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it does not follow that the author of Sindbad lived later than they, as both may have borrowed their illustrations from the same early sources.]

One inference is clear, from the story of Sindbad, that whilst the sea-coast of Ceylon was known to the Arabians, the interior had been little explored by them, and was so enveloped in mystery that any tale of its wonders, however improbable, was sure to gain credence. Hence, what Sindbad relates of the shore and its inhabitants is devoid of exaggeration: in his first visit the natives who received him were Malabars, one of whom had learned Arabic, and they were engaged in irrigating their rice lands from a tank. These are incidents which are characteristic of the north-western coast of Ceylon at the present day; and the commerce, for which the island was remarkable in the ninth and tenth centuries is implied by the expression of Sindbad, that on the occasion of his next voyage, when bearing presents and a letter from the Khalif to the King of Serendib, he embarked at Bassora in a ship, and with him "were many merchants."

Of the Arabian authors of the middle ages the one who dwells most largely on Ceylon is EDRISI, born of a family who ruled over Malaga after the fall of the Khalifs of Cordova. He was a _protégé_ of the Sicilian king, Roger the Norman, at whose desire he compiled his Geography, A.D. 1154. But with regard to Ceylon, his pages contain only the oft-repeated details of the height of the holy mountain, the gems found in its ravines, the musk, the perfumes, and odoriferous woods which abound there.[1] He particularises twelve cities, but their names are scarcely identifiable with any now known.[2] The sovereign, who was celebrated for the mildness of his rule, was assisted by a council of sixteen, of whom four were of the national religion, four Christians, four Mussulmans, and four Jews; and one of the chief cares of the government was given to keeping up the historical records of the reigns of their kings, the lives of their prophets, and the sacred books of their law.

[Footnote 1: EDRISI mentions, that at that period the sugar-cane was cultivated in Ceylon.]

[Footnote 2: Marnaba, (_Manaar?_) Aghna Perescouri, (_Periatorre?_) Aide, Mahouloun, (_Putlam?_) Hamri, Telmadi, (_Talmanaar?_) Lendouma, Sedi; Hesli, Beresli and Medouna (_Matura?_). "Aghna" or "Ana," as Edrisi makes it the residence of the king, must be Anarajapoora.]

Ships from China and other distant countries resorted to the island, and hither "came the wines of Irak, and Fars, which are purchased by the king, and sold again to his subjects; for, unlike the princes of India, who encourage debauchery but strictly forbid wine, the King of Serendib recommends wine and prohibits debauchery." The exports of the island he describes as silk, precious stones of every hue, rock-crystal, diamonds, and a profusion of perfumes.[1]

[Footnote 1: EDRISI, _Géogr._ Transl. de Jaubert, 4to. Paris, 1836, t. i. p. 71, &c. Edrisi, in his "Notice of Ceylon," quotes largely and verbatim from the work of Abou-zeyd.]

The last of this class of writers to whom it is necessary to allude is KAZWINI, who lived at Bagdad in the thirteenth century, and, from the diversified nature of his writings, has been called the Pliny of the East. In his geographical account of India, he includes Ceylon, but it is evident from the details into which he enters of the customs of the court and the people, the burning of the widows of the kings on the same pile with their husbands, that the information he had received had been collected amongst the Brahmanical, not the Buddhist portion of the people. This is confirmatory of the actual condition of the people of Ceylon at the period as shown by the native chronicles, the king being the Malabar Magha, who invaded the island from Caligna 1219 A.D., overthrew the Buddhist religion, desecrated its monuments and temples, and destroyed the edifices and literary records of the capital.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxx. _Rajaratnacari_, p. 93; _Rajavali_, p. 256. TURNOUR'S _Epitome, &c_., p. 44.]

KAZWINI, as usual, dwells on the productions of the island, its spices, and its odours, its precious woods and medical drugs, its profusion of gems, its gold and silver work, and its pearls[1]: but one circumstance will not fail to strike the reader as a strange omission in these frequent enumerations of the exports of Ceylon. I have traced them from their earliest notices by the Greeks and Romans to the period when the commerce of the East had reached its climax in the hands of the Persians and Arabians; the survey extends over fifteen centuries, during which Ceylon and its productions were familiarly known to the traders of all countries, and yet in the pages of no author, European or Asiatic, from the earliest ages to the close of the thirteenth century, is there the remotest allusion to _Cinnamon_ as an indigenous production, or even as an article of commerce in Ceylon. I may add, that I have been equally unsuccessful in finding any allusion to it in any Chinese work of ancient date.[2]

[Footnote 1: KAZWINI, in Gildemeister, _Script. Arab_. p. 108.]

[Footnote 2: In the Chinese Materia Medica, "_Pun-tsao-kang-muh_," cinnamon or cassia is described under the name of "_kwei_" but always as a production of Southern China and of Cochin China. In the Ming History, a production of Ceylon is mentioned under the name of "_Shoo-heang_," or "tree-perfume;" but my informant, Mr. Wylie, of Shanghae, is unable to identify it with cinnamon oil.]

This unexpected result has served to cast a suspicion on the title of Ceylon to be designated _par excellence_ the "Cinnamon Isle," and even with the knowledge that the cinnamon laurel is indigenous there, it admits of but little doubt that the spice which in the earlier ages was imported into Europe through Arabia, was obtained, first from Africa, and afterwards from India; and that it was not till after the twelfth or thirteenth century that its existence in Ceylon became known to the merchants resorting to the island. So little was its real history known in Europe, even at the latter period, that Phile, who composed his metrical treatise, [Greek: Peri Zôôn Idiotêtos], for the information of the Emperor Michael XI. (Palæologus), about the year 1310, repeats the ancient fable of Herodotus, that cinnamon grew in an unknown Indian country, whence it was carried by birds, from whose nests it was abstracted by the natives of Arabia.[1]

[Footnote 1:

[Greek: Ornis ho kinnamômos ônomasmenos To kinnamômon euren agnooumenon, Huph ou kalian organoi tois philtatois Mallon ie tois melasin Indois, autanax Arômatikên hêdonên diaplekei.]

PHILE, xxviii.

VINCENT, in scrutinising the writings of the classical authors, anterior to Cosmas, who treated of Taprobane, was surprised to discover that no mention of cinnamon as a production of Ceylon was to be met with in Pliny, Dioscorides, or Ptolemy, and that even the author of the mercantile _Periplus_ was silent regarding it. (Vol. ii. p. 512.) D'Herbelot has likewise called attention to the same fact. (_Bibl. Orient._ vol. iii. p. 308.) This omission is not to be explained by ascribing it to mere inadvertence. The interest of the Greeks and Romans was naturally excited to discover the country which produced a luxury so rare as to be a suitable gift for a king; and so costly, that a crown of cinnamon tipped with gold was a becoming offering to the gods. But the Arabs succeeded in preserving the secret of its origin, and the curiosity of Europe was baffled by tales of cinnamon being found in the nest of the Phoenix, or gathered in marshes guarded by monsters and winged serpents. Pliny appears to have been the first to suspect that the most precious of spices came not from Arabia, but from Æthiopia (lib. xii. c. xlii.); and COOLEY, in an argument equally remarkable for ingenuity and research, has succeeded in demonstrating the soundness of this conjecture, and establishing the fact that the cinnamon brought to Europe by the Arabs, and afterwards by the Greeks, came chiefly from the eastern angle of Africa, the tract around Cape Gardafui, which is marked on the ancient maps as the _Regio Cinnamomifera._ (Journ. Roy. Georg. Society, 1849, vol. xix. p. 166.) COOLEY has suggested in his learned work on "_Ptolemy and the Nile_," that the name _Gardafui_ is a compound of the Somali word _gard_, "a port," and the Arabic _afhaoni_, a generic term for aromata and spices. It admits of no doubt that the cinnamon of Ceylon was unknown to commerce in the sixth century of our era; although there is evidence of a supply which, if not from China, was probably carried in Chinese vessels at a much earlier period, in the Persian name _dar chini_, which means "_Chinese wood_," and in the ordinary word "cinn-amon," "_Chinese amomum_," a generic name for aromatic spices generally. (NEES VON ESENBACH, _de Cinnamono Disputatio_, p. 12.) Ptolemy, equally with Pliny, placed the "Cinnamon Region" at the north-eastern extremity of Africa, now the country of the Somaulees; and the author of the _Periplus_, mindful of his object, in writing a guidebook for merchant-seamen, particularises cassia amongst the exports of the same coast; but although he enumerates the productions of Ceylon, gems, pearls, ivory, and tortoiseshell, he is silent as to cinnamon. Dioscorides and Galen, in common with the travellers and geographers of the ancients, ignore its Singhalese origin, and unite with them in tracing it to the country of the Troglodytæ. I attach no importance to those passages in WAGENFELD'S version of _Sanchoniathon_, in which, amongst other particulars, obviously describing Ceylon under the name of "the island of Rachius," which he states to have been visited by the Phoenicians; he says, that the western province produced, the finest cinnamon ([Greek: kinnamô pollô te kai diapheronti]), that the mountains abounded in cassia (Greek: kasia arômatikôtatê]), and that the minor kings paid their tribute in both, to the paramount sovereign. (SANCHONIATHON, ed. Wagenfeld, Bremen, 1837, lib. vii. ch. xii.). The MS. from which Wagenfeld printed, is evidently a mediæval forgery (see note (A) to vol. i. ch. v. p. 547). Again, it is equally strange that the writers of Arabia and Persia preserve a similar silence as to the cinnamon of the island, although they dwell with due admiration on its other productions, in all of which they carried on a lucrative trade. Sir WILLIAM OUSELEY, after a fruitless search through the writings of their geographers and travellers, records his surprise at this result, and mentions especially his disappointment, that Ferdousi, who enriches his great poem with glowing descriptions of all the objects presented by surrounding nations to the sovereigns of Persia,--ivory, ambergris, and aloes, vases, bracelets, and jewels,--never once adverts to the exquisite cinnamon of Ceylon.--_Travels_, vol. i, p. 41.

The conclusion deducible from fifteen centuries of historic testimony is, that the earliest knowledge of cinnamon possessed by the western nations was derived from China, and that it first reached Judea and Phoenicia overland by way of Persia (Song of Solomon, iv. 14: Revelation xviii, 13). At a later period when the Arabs, "the merchants of Sheba," competed for the trade of Tyre, and earned to her "the chief of all spices" (Ezekiel xvii. 22), their supplies were drawn from their African possessions, and the cassia of the Troglodytic coast supplanted the cinnamon of the far East, and to a great extent excluded it from the market. The Greeks having at length discovered the secret of the Arabs, resorted to the same countries as their rivals in commerce, and surpassing them in practical navigation and the construction of ships, the Sabæans were for some centuries reduced to a state of mercantile dependence and inferiority. In the meantime the Roman Empire declined; the Persians under the Sassanides engrossed the intercourse with the East, the trade of India now flowed through the Persian Gulf, and the ports of the Red Sea were deserted. "Thus the downfall, and it may be the extinction, of the African spice trade probably dates from the close of the sixth century, and Malabar succeeded at once to this branch of commerce."--COOLEY, _Regio Cinnamomifera_, p. 14. Cooley supposes that the Malabars may have obtained from Ceylon the cinnamon with which they supplied the Persians; as Ibn Batuta, in the fourteenth century, saw cinnamon trees drifted upon the shores of the island, whither they had been carried by torrents from the forests of the interior (_Ibn Batuta_, ch. xx. p. 182). The fact of their being found so is in itself sufficient evidence, that down to that time no active trade had been carried on in the article; and the earliest travellers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, MARCO POLO, JOHN OF HESSE, FRA JORDANUS and others, whilst they allude to cinnamon as one of the chief productions of Malabar, speak of Ceylon, notwithstanding her wealth in jewels and pearls, as if she were utterly destitute of any spice of this kind. NICOLA DE CONTI, A.D. 1444, is the first European writer, in whose pages I have found Ceylon described as yielding cinnamon, and he is followed by Varthema, A.D. 1506, and Corsali, A.D. 1515.

Long after the arrival of Europeans in Ceylon, cinnamon was only found in the forests of the interior, where it was cut and brought away by the Chalias, the caste who, from having been originally weavers, devoted themselves to this new employment. The Chalias are themselves an immigrant tribe, and, according to their own tradition, they came to the island only a very short time before the appearance of the Portuguese. (See a _History of the Chalias_, by ADRIAN RAJAPAKSE, _a Chief of the Caste, Asiat. Reser._ vol. iii. p. 440.) So difficult of access were the forests, that the Portuguese could only obtain a full supply from them once in three years; and the Dutch, to remedy this uncertainty, made regular plantations in the vicinity of their forts about the year 1770 A.D., "_so that the cultivation of cinnamon in Ceylon is not yet a century old_"--COOLEY, p. 15. It is a question for scientific research rather than for historical scrutiny, whether the cinnamon laurel of Ceylon, as it exists at the present day, is indigenous to the island, or whether it is identical with the cinnamon of Abyssinia, and may have been carried thence by the Arabs; or whether it was brought to the island from the adjacent continent of India; or imported by the Chinese from islands still further to the east. One fact is notorious at the present day, that nearly the whole of the cinnamon grown in Ceylon is produced in a small and well-defined area occupying the S.W. quarter of the island, which has been at all times the resort of foreign shipping. The natives, from observing its appearance for the first time in other and unexpected places, believe it to be sown by the birds who carry thither the undigested seeds; and the Dutch, for this reason, prohibited the shooting of crows,--a precaution that would scarcely be necessary for the protection of the plant, had they believed it to be not only indigenous, but peculiar to the island. We ourselves were led, till very recently, to imagine that Ceylon enjoyed a "natural monopoly" of cinnamon.

Mr. THWAITES, of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kandy, is of opinion from his own observation, that cinnamon is indigenous to Ceylon, as it is found, but of inferior quality, in the central mountain range, as high as 3000 feet above the level of the sea--and again in the sandy soil near Batticaloa on the east coast, he saw it in such quantity as to suggest the idea that it must be the remains of former cultivation. This statement of Mr. Thwaites is quite in consistency with the narrative of VALENTYN (ch. vii.), that the Dutch, on their first arrival in Ceylon, A.D. 1601-2, took on board cinnamon at Batticaloa,--and that the surrounding district continued to produce it in great abundance in A.D. 1726. (Ib. ch. xv. p. 223, 224.) Still it must be observed that its appearance in these situations is not altogether inconsistent with the popular belief that the seeds may have been carried there by birds.

Finding that the Singhalese works accessible to me, the _Mahawanso_, the _Rajavali_, the _Rajaratnacari_, &c., although frequently particularising the aromatic shrubs and flowers planted by the pious care of the native sovereigns, made no mention of cinnamon, I am indebted to the good offices of the Maha-Moodliar de Sarem, of Mr. De Alwis, the translator of the _Sidath-Sangara_, and of Mr. Spence Hardy, the learned historian of Buddhism, for a thorough, examination of such native books as were likely to throw light on the question. Mr. Hardy writes to me that he has not met with the word cinnamon (_kurundu_) in any early Singhalese books; but there is mention of a substance called "_paspalawata_" of which cinnamon forms one of the ingredients. Mr. de Alwis has been equally unsuccessful, although in the _Saraswate Nigardu_, an ancient Sanskrit Catalogue of Plants, the true cinnamon is spoken of as _Sinhalam_, a word which signifies "belonging to Ceylon" to distinguish it from cassia, which is found in Hindustan. The Maha-Moodliar, as the result of an investigation made by him in communication with some of the most erudite of the Buddhist priesthood familiar with Pali and Singhalese literature, informs me that whilst cinnamon is alluded to in several Sanskrit works on Medicine, such as that of Susrata, and thence copied into Pali translations, its name has been found only in Singhalese works of comparatively modern date, although it occurs in the treatise on Medicine and Surgery popularly attributed to King Bujas Raja, A.D. 339. Lankagodde, a learned priest of Galle, says that the word _lawanga_ in an ancient Pali vocabulary means cinnamon, but I rather think this is a mistake, for _lawanga_ or _lavanga_ is the Pali name for "cloves," that for cinnamon being _lamago_.

The question therefore remains in considerable obscurity. It is difficult to understand how an article so precious could exist in the highest perfection in Ceylon, at the period when the island was the very focus and centre of Eastern commerce, and yet not become an object of interest and an item of export. And although it is sparingly used in the Singhalese cuisine, still looking at its many religious uses for decoration and incense, the silence of the ecclesiastical writers as to its existence is not easily accounted for.

The explanation may possibly be, that cinnamon, like coffee, was originally a native of the east angle of Africa; and that the same Arabian adventurers who carried coffee to Yemen, where it flourishes to the present day, may have been equally instrumental in introducing cinnamon into India and Ceylon. In India its cultivation, probably from natural causes, proved unsuccessful; but in Ceylon the plant enjoyed that rare combination of soil, temperature, and climate, which ultimately gave to its qualities the highest possible development.]

The first authentic notice which we have of Singhalese cinnamon occurs in the voyages of Ibn Batuta the Moor, who, impelled by religious enthusiasm, set out from his native city Tangiers, in the year 1324, and devoted twenty-eight years to a pilgrimage, the record of which has entitled him to rank amongst the most remarkable travellers of any age or country.

On his way to India, he visited, in Shiraz, the tomb of the Imaum Abu Abd Allah, "who made known the way from India to the mountain of Serendib." As this saint died in the year of the _Hejira_ 331, his story serves to fix the origin of the Mahometan pilgrimages to Adam's Peak, in the early part of the tenth century. When steering for the coast of India, from the Maldives, Ibn Batuta was carried by the south-west monsoon towards the northern portion of Ceylon, which was then (A.D. 1347) in the hands of the Malabars, the Singhalese sovereign having removed his capital southward to Gampola. The Hindu chief of Jaffna was at this time in possession of a fleet in "which he occasionally transported his troops against the Mahometans on other parts of the coast;" where the Singhalese chroniclers relate that the Tamils at this time had erected forts at Colombo, Negombo, and Chilaw.

Ibn Batuta was permitted to land at Battala (Putlam) and found the shore covered with "cinnamon wood," which "the merchants of Malabar transport without any other price than a few articles of clothing which are given as presents to the king. This may be attributed to the circumstance that it is brought down by the mountain torrents, and left in great heaps upon the shore."

This passage is interesting, though not devoid of obscurity, for cinnamon is not known to grow farther north than Chilaw, nor is there any river in the district of Putlam which could bear the designation of a "mountain torrent." Along the coast further south the cinnamon district commences, and the current of the sea may have possibly carried with it the uprooted laurels described in the narrative. The whole passage, however, demonstrates that at that time, at least, Ceylon had no organised trade in the spice.

The Tamil chieftain exhibited to Ibn Batuta his wealth in "pearls," and under his protection he made the pilgrimage to the summit of Adam's Peak accompanied by four jyogees who visited the foot-mark every year, "four Brahmans, and ten of the king's companions, with fifteen attendants carrying provisions." The first day he crossed a river, (the estuary of Calpentyn?) on a boat made of reeds, and entered the city of Manar Mandali; probably the site of the present Minneri Mundal. This was the "extremity of the territory of the infidel king," whence Ibn Batuta proceeded to the port of Salawat (Chilaw), and thence (turning inland) he reached the city of the Singhalese sovereign at Gampola, then called Ganga-sri-pura, which he contracts into Kankar or Ganga.[1]

[Footnote 1: As he afterwards writes, Galle "Kale."]

He describes accurately the situation of the ancient capital, in a valley between two hills, upon a bend of the river called, "the estuary of rubies." The emperor he names "Kina," a term I am unable to explain, as the prince who then reigned was probably Bhuwaneka-bahu IV., the first Singhalese monarch who held his court at Gampola.

The king on feast days rode on a white elephant, his head adorned with very large rubies, which are found in his country, imbedded in "a white stone abounding in fissures, from which they cut it out and give it to the polishers." Ibn Batuta enumerates three varieties, "the red, the yellow, and the cornelian;" but the last must mean the sapphire, the second the topaz; and the first refers, I apprehend, to the amethyst; for in the following passage, in describing the decorations of the head of the white elephant, he speaks of "seven rubies, each of which was larger than a hen's egg," and a saucer made of a ruby as broad as the palm of the hand.

In the ascent from Gampola to Adam's Peak, he speaks of the monkeys with beards like a man (_Presbytes ursinus_, or _P. cephalopterus_), and of the "fierce leech," which lurks in the trees and damp grass, and springs on the passers by. He describes the trees with leaves that never fall, and the "red roses" of the rhododendrons which still characterise that lofty region. At the foot of the last pinnacle which crowns the summit of the peak, he found a minaret named after Alexander the Great[1]; steps hewn out of the rock, and "iron pins to which chains are appended" to assist the pilgrims in their ascent; a well filled with fish, and last of all, on the loftiest point of the mountain, the sacred foot-print of the First Man, into the hollow of which the pilgrims drop their offerings of gems and gold.

[Footnote 1: In oriental tradition, Alexander is believed to have visited Ceylon in company with the "philosopher Bolinus," by whom De Sacy believes that the Arabs meant Apollonius of Tyana. There is a Persian poem by ASHREP, the _Zaffer Namah Skendari_, which describes the conqueror's voyage to Serendib, and his devotions at the foot-mark of Adam, for reaching which, he and Bolinus caused steps to be hewn in the rock, and the ascent secured by rivets and chains.--See OUSELEY'S _Travels_, vol. i. p. 58. ]

In descending the mountain, Ibn Batuta passed through the village of Kalanga, near which was a tomb, said to be that of Abu Abd Allah Ibn Khalif[1]; he visited the temple of Dinaur (Devi-Neuera, or Dondera Head), and returned to Putlam by way of Kale (Galle), and Kolambu (Colombo), "the finest and largest city in Serendib."

[Footnote 1: Abu Abd Allah was the first who led the Mahometan pilgrims to Ceylon. The tomb alluded to was probably a _cenotaph_ in his honour; as Ibn Batuta had previously visited his tomb at Shiraz.]

CHAP. III.

CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE CHINESE.

Although the intimate knowledge of Ceylon acquired by the Chinese at an early period, is distinctly ascribable to the sympathy and intercourse promoted by community of religion, there is traditional, if not historical evidence that its origin, in a remote age, may be traced to the love of gain and their eagerness for the extension of commerce. The Singhalese ambassadors who arrived at Rome in the reign of the Emperor Clandius, stated that their ancestors had reached China by traversing India and the Himalayan mountains long before ships had attempted the voyage by sea[1], and as late as the fifth century of the Christian era, the King of Ceylon[2], in an address delivered by his envoy to the Emperor of China, shows that both routes were then in use.[3]

[Footnote 1: PLINY, b. vi. ch. xxiv.]

[Footnote 2: Maha Naama, A.D. 428; _Sung-shoo_, a "History of the Northern Sung Dynasty," b. xcvii, p. 5.]

[Footnote 3: It was probably the knowledge of the overland route that led the Chinese to establish their military colonies in Kashgar, Yarkhand and the countries lying between their own frontier and the north-east boundary of India.--_Journ. Asiat._ 1. vi. p. 343. An embassy from China to Ceylon, A.D. 607, was entrusted to _Chang-Tsuen_, "Director of the Military Lands."--_Suy-shoo_; b. lxxxi. p. 3.]

It is not, however, till after the third century of the Christian era that we find authentic records of such journeys in the literature of China. The Buddhist pilgrims, who at that time resorted to India, published on their return itineraries and descriptions of the distant countries they had visited, and officers, both military and civil, brought back memoirs and statistical statements for the information of the government and the guidance of commerce.[1]

[Footnote 1: REINAUD, _Mémoir sur l'Inde_, p. 9. STANISLAS JULIEN, preface to his translation of _Hiouen-Thsang_, Paris, 1853, p. 1. A bibliographical notice of the most important Chinese works which contain descriptions of India, by M.S. JULIEN, will be found in the _Journ. Asiat._ for October, 1832, p. 264.]

It was reasonable to anticipate that in such records information would be found regarding the condition of Ceylon as it presented itself from time to time to the eyes of the Chinese; but unfortunately numbers of the original works have long since perished, or exist only in extracts preserved in dynastic histories and encyclopædias, or in a class of books almost peculiar to China, called "tsung-shoo," consisting of excerpts reproduced from the most ancient writers. M. Stanislas Julien discovered in the _Pien-i-tien_, ("a History of Foreign Nations," of which there is a copy in the Imperial Library of Paris,) a collection of fragments from Chinese authors who had treated of Ceylon; but as the intention of that eminent Sinologue to translate them[1] has not yet been carried into effect, they are not available to me for consultation. In this difficulty I turned for assistance to China; and through the assiduous kindness of Mr. Wylie, of the London Mission at Shanghai, I have received extracts from twenty-four Chinese writers between the fifth and eighteenth centuries, from which and from translations of Chinese travels and topographies made by Remusat, Klaproth, Landresse, Pauthier, Stanislas Julien, and others, I have been enabled to collect the following facts relative to the knowledge of Ceylon possessed by the Chinese in the middle ages.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Journ. Asiat._ t. xxix. p. 39. M. Stanislas Julien is at present engaged in the translation of the _Si-yu-ki_, or "Mémoires des Contrées Occidentales," the eleventh chapter of which contains an account of Ceylon in the eighth century.]

[Footnote 2: The Chinese works referred to in the following pages are.--_Sung-shoo_, the "History of the Northern Sung Dynasty," A.D. 417-473, by CHIN-Y[)O], written about A.D. 487,--_Wei-shoo_, "a History of the Wei Tartar Dynasty," A.D. 386-556, by WEI-SHOW, A.D. 590.--_Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki_, an "Account of the Buddhist Kingdoms," by CH[)Y]-F[)A]-HIAN, A.D. 399-414, French transl., by Rémusat, Klaproth, and Landresse. Paris, 1836.--_Leang-shoo_, "History of the Leang Dynasty," A.D. 502-557, by YAOU-SZE-LEEN, A.D. 630.--_Suy-shoo_, "History of the Suy Dynasty," A.D. 581-617, by WEI-CHING, A.D. 633.--HIOUEN-THSANG. His Life and Travels, A.D. 645, French, transl., by Stanislas Julien. Paris, 1853.--_Nan-shè_, "History of the Southern Empire," A.D. 317-589, by LE-YEN-SHOW, A.D. 650,--_Tung-tëen_, "Cyclopædia of History," by TOO-YEW, A.D. 740.--KÉ-NË[)E] _si-y[)i]h hing-Ching_, "Itinerary of KÉ-NË[)E]'s Travels in the Western Regions," from A.D. 964-979.--_Tae-ping yu-lan_, "The Tae-ping Digest of History," compiled by Imperial Command, A.D. 983.--_Ts[)i]h-foo yuen-Kwei_, "Great Depository of the National Archives," compiled by Imperial Command, A.D. 1012.--_Sin-Tang-shoo_, "A New History of the Tang Dynasty," A.D. 618-906, by GOW-YANG-SEW and SING-KÉ, A.D. 1060.--_Tung-che_, "National Annals," by CHING-TSEAOU, A.D. 1150.--_W[)a]n-hëén tung-kaou_, "Antiquarian Researches," by MA-TWAN-LIN, A.D. 1319. Of this remarkable work there is an admirable analysis by Klaproth in the _Asiatic Journal_ for 1832, vol. xxxv. p. 110, and one still more complete in the _Journal Asiatique_, vol. xxi. p. 3. The portion relating to Ceylon has been translated into French by M. Pauthier in the _Journal Asiatique_ for April, 1836, and again by M. Stanislas Julien in the same Journal for July, 1836, t. xxix, p. 36.--_Y[)u]h-hae_, "The Ocean of Gems," by WANG-YANG-LIN, A.D. 1338.--_Taou-e chele[)o]_, "A General Account of Island Foreigners," by WANG-TA-YOUEN, A.D. 1350.--_Ts[)i]h-ké_, "Miscellaneous Record;" written at the end of the Yuen dynasty, about the close of the fourteenth century.--_Po-w[)u]h yaou-lan_, "Philosophical Examiner;" written during the Ming dynasty, about the beginning of the fifteenth century.--_Se-y[)i]h-ke foo-choo_, "A Description of Western Countries," A.D. 1450. This is the important work of which M. Stanislas Julien has recently published the first volume of his French translation, _Mémoires des Contrées Occidentales_, Paris, 1857; and of which he has been so obliging as to send me those sheets of the second volume, now preparing for the press, which contain the notices of Ceylon by HIOUEN-THSANG. They, however, add very little to the information already given in the _Life and Travels of Hiouen-Thsang.--Woo-he[)o]-pëen_, "Records of the Ming Dynasty," by CHING-HEAOU, A.D. 1522.--_S[)u]h-wan-hëen tung-kaou_, "Supplement to the Antiquarian Researches," by WANG-KÉ, A.D. 1603.--_S[)u]h-Hung këen-luh_, "Supplement to the History of the Middle Ages," by SHAOU-YUEN-PING, A.D. 1706.--_Ming-she_, "History of the Ming Dynasty," A.D. 1638-1643, by CHANG-TING-Y[)U]H, A.D. 1739.--_Ta-tsing y[)i]h-tung_, "A Topographical Account of the Manchoo Dynasty," of which there is a copy in the British Museum.]

Like the Greek geographers, the earliest Chinese authorities grossly exaggerated the size of Ceylon: they represented it as lying "cross-wise" in the Indian Ocean[1], and extending in width from east to west one third more than in depth from north to south.[2] They were struck by the altitude of its hills, and, above all, by the lofty crest of Adam's Peak, which served as the land-mark for ships approaching the island. They speak reverentially of the sacred foot-mark[3] impressed by the first created man, who, in their mythology, bears the name of Pawn-koo; and the gems which are found upon the mountain they believe to be his "crystallised tears, which accounts for their singular lustre and marvellous tints."[4] The country they admired for its fertility and singular beauty; the climate they compared to that of Siam[5], with slight alterations of seasons; refreshing showers in every period of the year, and the earth consequently teeming with fertility.[6]

[Footnote 1: _Taou-e ché-lë[)o]_, quoted in the _Hae-kw[)o]-too che_, Foreign Geography, b. xviii. p. 15.]

[Footnote 2: _Leang-shoo_, b. liv. p. 10; _Nan-shè_, b. lxxiii. p. 13; _Tung-tëen_, b. clxxxviii. p. 17.]

[Footnote 3: The Chinese books repeat the popular belief that the hollow of the sacred footstep contains water "which does not dry up all the year round;" and that invalids recover by drinking from the well at the foot of the mountain; into which "the sea-water enters free from salt." _Taou-e ché-lë[)o]_, quoted in the _Hae-kw[)o]-toô-ché_, or Foreign Geography, b. xxviii. p. 15.]

[Footnote 4: _Po-w[)u]h Yaou-lan_, b. xxxiii. p. 1. WANG-KE, _S[)u]-Wan-hëentung-kaou_, b. ccxxxvi. p. 19.]

[Footnote 5: _Tung-tëen_, b. clxxxviii. p. 17. _Tae-ping_, b. dcclxxxvii p. 5.]

[Footnote 6: _Leang-shoo_, b. liv. p. 10.]

The names by which Ceylon was known to them were either adapted from the Singhalese, as nearly as the Chinese characters would supply equivalents for the Sanskrit and Pali letters, or else they are translations of the sense implied by each designation. Thus, Sinhala was either rendered "_Seng-kia-lo_,"[1] or "_Sze-tseu-kw[)o]_," the latter name as well as the original, meaning "the kingdom of lions."[2] The classical Lanka is preserved in the Chinese "_Lang-kea_" and "_Lang-ya-seu_" In the epithet "_Ch[)i]h-too_," the _Red Land_[3], we have a simple rendering of the Pali _Tambapanni_, the "Copper-palmed," from the colour of the soil.[4] _Paou-choo_[5] is a translation of the Sanskrit Ratna-dwipa, the "Island of Gems," and _Ts[)i]h-e-lan, Se[)i]h-lan_, and _Se-lung_, are all modern modifications of the European "Ceylon."

[Footnote 1: _Hiouen-Thsang_, b. iv. p. 194. Transl. M.S. Julien.]

[Footnote 2: This, M. Stanislas Julien says, should be "the kingdom of _the lion_," in allusion to the mythical ancestry of Wijayo.--_Journ. Asiat_, tom. xxix. p. 37. And in a note to the tenth book of HIOUEN-THSANG'S _Voyages des Pélerins Bouddhistes_, vol. ii. p. 124, he says one name for Ceylon in Chinese is "Tchi-sse-tseu" "(le royaume de celui qui) a pris un lion."]

[Footnote 3: _Suy-shoo_, b. lxxx. p. 3. In the _Se-y[)i]h-ké foo-choo_, or "Descriptions of Western Countries," Ceylon is called _Woo-yew-kw[(o]_, "the sorrowless kingdom."]

[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 50.]

[Footnote 5: _Se-y[)i]h-ké foo-choo_, quoted in the _Haè-kw[)o]-too che_, or "Foreign Geography," l. xviii. p. 15; HIOUEN-THSANG; _Voyages des Péler. Boudd_. lib. xi. vol. ii. p. 125; 130 n.]

The ideas of the Chinese regarding the mythical period of Singhalese history, and the first peopling of the island, are embodied in a very few sentences which are repeated throughout the series of authors, and with which we are made familiar in the following passage from F[)A] HIAN:--" Sze-tseu-kw[)o], the kingdom of lions[1], was inhabited originally not by men but by demons and dragons.[2] Merchants were attracted to the island, by the prospect of trade; but the demons remained unseen, merely exposing the precious articles which they wished to barter: with a price marked for each, at which the foreign traders were at liberty to take them, depositing the equivalents indicated in exchange. From the resort of these dealers, the inhabitants of other countries, hearing of the attractions of the island, resorted to it in large numbers, and thus eventually a great kingdom was formed."[3]

[Footnote 1: _Wan-hëen tung-kaou_, b. cccxxxviii. p. 24.]

[Footnote 2: The Yakkhos and Nagas ("devils" and "serpents") of the _Mahawanso_.]

[Footnote 3: _Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 333. Transl. RÉMUSAT. This account of Ceylon is repeated almost verbatim in the _Tung-tëen_, and in numerous other Chinese works, with the addition that the newly-formed kingdom of Sinhala, "Sze-tseu-kw[)o]," took its name from the "skill of the natives in training lions."--B. cxciii. pp. 8, 9; _Tae-ping_, b. dccxciii. p. 9; _Sin-Tang-shoo_, b. cxlvi. part ii. p. 10. A very accurate translation of the passage as it is given by MA-TOUAN-LIN is published by M. Stanislas Julien in the _Journ. Asiat._ for July, 1836, tom. xxix. p. 36.]

The Chinese were aware of two separate races, one occupying the northern and the other the southern extremity of the island, and were struck with the resemblance of the Tamils to the Hoo, a people of Central Asia, and of the Singhalese to the Leaou, a mountain tribe of Western China.[1] The latter they describe as having "large ears, long eyes, purple faces, black bodies, moist and strong hands and feet, and living to one hundred years and upwards.[2] Their hair was worn long and flowing, not only by the women but by the men." In these details there are particulars that closely resemble the description of the natives of the island visited by Jambulus, as related in the story told by Diodorus.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Too-Hiouen_, quoted in the _Tung-tëen_, b. cxciii. p. 8.]

[Footnote 2: _Taou-e ché-lë[)o]_, quoted in the _Hae-kw[)o]-too ché_, or "Foreign Geography," b. xviii p. 15.]

[Footnote 3: DIODORUS SICULUS, lib. ii. ch. liii. See _ante_, Vol. I. P. v. ch. 1. p. 153.]

The Chinese in the seventh century found the Singhalese dressed in a costume which appears to be nearly identical with that of the present day.[1] Both males and females had their hair long and flowing, but the heads of children were closely shaven, a practice which still partially prevails. The jackets of the girls were occasionally ornamented with gems.[2] "The men," says the _Tung-tëen_, "have the upper part of the body naked, but cover their limbs with a cloth, called _Kan-man,_ made of _Koo-pei_, 'Cotton,' a word in which we may recognise the term 'Comboy,' used to designate the cotton cloth universally worn at the present day by the Singhalese of both sexes in the maritime provinces.[3] For their vests, the kings and nobles made use of a substance which is described as 'cloud cloth,'[4] probably from its being very transparent, and gathered (as is still the costume of the chiefs of Kandy) into very large folds. It was fastened with golden cord. Men of rank were decorated with earrings. The dead were burned, not buried." And the following passage from the _S[)u]h-wan-hëen tung-kaou_, or the "Supplement to Antiquarian Researches," is strikingly descriptive of what may be constantly witnessed in Ceylon;--"the females who live near the family of the dead assemble in the house, beat their breasts with both hands, howl and weep, which constitutes their appropriate rite."[5]

[Footnote 1: _Leang-shoo_, b. liv. p. 10; _Nan-shè_, b. lxxviii. pp. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 2: _Nan-shè_, A.D. 650, b. lxxviii. p. 13; _Leang-shoo_, A.D. 670; b. liv. p. 11. Such is still the dress of the Singhalese females.

[Footnote 3: _Tung-tëen_, b. clxxxviii. p. 17; _Nan-shè_, b. lxxviii. p. 13; _Sin-tang-shoo_, b. cxcviii p. 25. See p. iv. ch. iv, vol. i. p. 450.]

[Footnote 4: The Chinese term is "yun-hae-poo."--_Leang-shoo_, b. liv. p. 10.]

[Footnote 5: B. ccxxxvi. p. 19.]

The natural riches of Ceylon, and its productive capabilities, speedily impressed the Chinese, who were bent upon the discovery of outlets for their commerce, with the conviction of its importance as an emporium of trade. So remote was the age at which strangers frequented it, that in the "_Account of Island Foreigners,"_ written by WANG-TA-YUEN[1] in the fourteenth century, it is stated that the origin of trade in the island was coeval with the visit of Buddha, who, "taking compassion on the aborigines, who were poor and addicted to robbery, turned their disposition to virtue, by sprinkling the land with sweet dew, which caused it to produce red gems, and thus gave them wherewith to trade," and hence it became the resort of traders from every country.[2] Though aware of the unsuitability of the climate to ripen wheat, the Chinese were struck with admiration at the wonderful appliances of the Singhalese for irrigation, and the cultivation of rice.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Taou-e ché-lë[)o]_, quoted in the Foreign Geography, b. xviii. p. 15.]

[Footnote 2: The rapid peopling of Ceylon at a very remote age is accounted for in the following terms in a passage of MA-TWAN-LIN, as translated by M. Stanislas Julien;--"Les habitants des autres royaumes entendirent parler de ce pays fortuné; c'est pourquoi ils y accoururent à l'envi."--_Journ. Asiat._ t. xxix. p. 42.]

[Footnote 3: Records of the Ming Dynasty, by CHING-HEAOU, b. lxviii. p. 5.]

According to the _Tung-tëen_, the intercourse between them and the Singhalese, began during the Eastern Tsin dynasty, A.D. 317--419[1]; and one remarkable island still retains a name which is commemorative of their presence. Salang, to the north of Penang, lay in the direct course of the Chinese junks on their way to and from Ceylon, through the Straits of Malacca, and, in addition to its harbour, was attractive from its valuable mines of tin. Here the Chinese fleets called on both voyages; and the fact of their resort is indicated by the popular name "Ajung-Selan," or "Junk-Ceylon;" by which the place is still known, _Ajung_, in the language of the Malays, being the term for "large shipping," and _Selan_, their name for Ceylon.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Tung-tëen_, A.D. 740, b. clxxxviii. p. 17.]

[Footnote 2: _Sincapore Chronicle_, 1836.]

The port in Ceylon which the Chinese vessels made their rendezvous, was Lo-le (Galle), "where," it is said, "ships anchor, and people land."[1]

[Footnote 1: WANG-KE, _Suh-wan-hëen tung-kaou_, b. ccxxxvi p. 19.]

Besides rice, the vegetable productions of the island enumerated by the various Chinese authorities were aloes-wood, sandal-wood[1], and ebony; camphor[2], areca-nuts, beans, sesamum, coco-nuts (and arrack distilled from the coco-nut palm) pepper, sugar-cane, myrrh, frankincense, oil and drugs.[3] An odoriferous extract, called by the Chinese _Shoo-heang_, is likewise particularised, but it is not possible now to identify it.

[Footnote 1: The mention of sandal-wood is suggestive. It does not, so far as I could ever learn, exist in Ceylon; yet it is mentioned with particular care amongst its exports in the Chinese books. Can it be that, like the calamander, or Coromandel-wood, which is rapidly approaching extinction, sandal-wood was extirpated from the island by injudicious cutting, unaccompanied by any precautions for the reproduction of the tree?]

[Footnote 2: _Nan-shè_, b. lxxviii. p. 13.]

[Footnote 3: _Suh-Hung keën-luh_, b. xlii. p. 52.]

Elephants and ivory were in request; and the only manufactures alluded to for export were woven cotton[1], gold ornaments, and jewelry; including models of the shrines in which were deposited the sacred relics of Buddha.[2] Statues of Buddha were frequently sent as royal presents, and so great was the fame of Ceylon for their production in the fourth and fifth centuries, that according to the historian of the Wei Tartar dynasty, A.D. 386-556, people "from the countries of Central Asia, and the kings of those nations, emulated each other in sending artisans to procure copies, but none could rival the productions of Nan-té.[3] On standing about ten paces distant they appeared truly brilliant, but the lineaments gradually disappeared on a nearer approach."[4]

[Footnote 1: _Tsih-foo yuen-kwei_, A.D. 1012, b. dcccclxxi. p. 15. At a later period "Western cloth" is mentioned among the exports of Ceylon, but the reference must be to cloth previously imported either from India or Persia.--_Ming-she History of the Ming Dynasty,_ A.D. 1368--1643, b. cccxxvi. p. 7.]

[Footnote 2: A model of the shrine containing the sacred tooth was sent to the Emperor of China in the fifth century by the King of Ceylon; "_Chacha Mo-ho-nan,"_ a name which appears to coincide with Raja Maha Nama, who reigned A.D. 410--433.--_Shunshoo_, A.D. 487, b. xlvii. p. 6.]

[Footnote 3: Nan-té was a Buddhist priest, who in the year A.D. 456 was sent on an embassy to the Emperor of China, and was made the bearer of three statues of his own making.--_Ts[)i]h-foo yuen-kwei,_ b. li. p. 7.]

[Footnote 4: _Wei-shoo,_ A.D. 590, b. cxiv. p. 9.]

Pearls, corals, and crystals were eagerly sought after; but of all articles the gems of Ceylon were in the greatest request. The business of collecting and selling them seems from the earliest time to have fallen into the hands of the Arabs, and hence they bore in China the designation of "Mahometan stones."[1] They consisted of rubies, sapphires, amethysts, carbuncles (the "red precious stone, the lustre of which serves instead of a lamp at night")[2]; and topazes of four distinct tints, "those the colour of wine; the delicate tint of young goslings, the deep amber, like bees'-wax, and the pale tinge resembling the opening bud of the pine."[3] It will not fail to be observed that throughout all these historical and topographical works of the Chinese, extending over a period of twelve centuries, from the year A.D. 487, there is no mention whatever of _cinnamon_ as a production of Ceylon; although cassia, described under the name of kwei, is mentioned as indigenous in China and Cochin-China. In exchange for these commodities the Chinese traders brought with them silk, variegated lute strings, blue porcelain, enamelled dishes and cups, and quantities of copper cash wanted for adjusting the balances of trade.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Tsih-ke,_ quoted in the Chinese _Mirror of Sciences,_ b. xxxiii. p. 1.]

[Footnote 2: _Po-w[)u]h yaou-lan,_ b. xxxiii. p. 2.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_.]

[Footnote 4: _Suy-shoo_, "History of the Suy Dynasty," A.D. 633, b. lxxxi. p. 3.]

Of the religion of the people, the earliest account recorded by the Chinese is that of F[)A] HIAN, in the fourth century[1], when Buddhism was signally in the ascendant. But in the century which followed, travellers returning from Ceylon brought back accounts of the growing power of the Tamils, and of the consequent eclipse of the national worship. The _Yung-tëen_ and the _Tae-ping_ describe at that early period the prevalence of Brahmanical customs, but coupled with "greater reverence for the Buddhistical faith."[2] In process of time, however, they are forced to admit the gradual decline of the latter, and the attachment of the Singhalese kings to the Hindu ritual, exhibiting an equal reverence to the ox and to the images of Buddha.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii.]

[Footnote 2: _Tae-ping_, b. dccxciii, p. 9.]

[Footnote 3: _Woo-hë[)o]-pëen_, "Records of the Ming Dynasty," b. lxviii. p. 4; _Tung-në[)e]_, b. cxcvi. pp. 79, 80.]

The Chinese trace to Ceylon the first foundation of monasteries, and of dwelling-houses for the priests, and in this they are corroborated by the _Mahawanso_.[1] From these pious communities, the Emperors of China were accustomed from time to time to solicit transcripts of theological works[2], and their envoys, returning from such missions, appear to have brought glowing accounts of the Singhalese temples, the costly shrines for relics, and the fervid devotion of the people to the national worship.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xv. p. 99; ch. xx. p. 123. In the Itinerary of KÉ-NË[)E]'s _Travels in the Western Kingdoms in the tenth Century_ he mentions having seen a monastery of Singhalese on the continent of India.--KÉ-NË[)E], _Se-y[)i]h hing-ching_, A.D. 964--976.]

[Footnote 2: _Tae-ping_, b. dcclxxxvii. p. 5.]

[Footnote 3: _Taou-e ché-lë[)o]_. "Account of Island Foreigners," quoted in the "_Foreign Geography_" b. xviii. p. 15. _Se-y[)i]-ke foo-choo_. Ib. "At daybreak every morning the people are summoned, and exhorted to repeat the passages of Buddha, in order to remove ignorance and open the minds of the multitude. Discourses are delivered upon the principles of vacancy (nirwana?) and abstraction from all material objects, in order that truth maybe studied in solitude and silence, and the unfathomable point of principle attained free from the distracting influences of sound or smell."--_Ts[)i]h-foo yaen-kwei_, A.D. 1012, b. dcccclxi. p. 5.]

The cities of Ceylon in the sixth century are stated, in the "_History of the Leang Dynasty_," to have been encompassed by walls built of brick, with double gates, and the houses within were constructed with upper stories.[1] The palace of the king, at Anarajapoora, in the eleventh century, was sufficiently splendid to excite the admiration of these visitants, "the precious articles with which it was decorated being reflected in the thoroughfares."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Leang-shoo_, A.D. 630, b. liv. p 11.]

[Footnote 2: _Ts[)i]h-foo yaen-kwei_, b. dcccclxi. p. 5.]

The Chinese authors, like the Greeks and Arabians, are warm in their praises of the patriotism of the Singhalese sovereigns, and their active exertions for the improvement of the country, and the prosperity of the people.[1] On state occasions, the king, "carried on an elephant, and accompanied by banners, streamers, and tom-toms, rode under a canopy[2], attended by a military guard."[3]

[Footnote 1: Ibid.]

[Footnote 2: The "chatta," or umbrella, emblematic of royalty.]

[Footnote 3: _Leang-shoo_. b. liv. p. 10.]

Throughout all the Chinese accounts, from the very earliest period, there are notices of the manners of the Singhalese, and even minute particulars of their domestic habits, which attest a continued intercourse and an intimate familiarity between the people of the two countries.[1] In this important feature the narratives of the Arabs, who, with the exception of the pilgrimage made with difficulty to Adam's Peak, appear to have known only the sea-coast and the mercantile communities established there, exhibit a marked difference when compared with those of the Chinese; as the latter, in addition to their trading operations in the south of the island, made their way into the interior, and penetrated to the cities in the northern districts. The explanation is to be found in the identity of the national worship attracting as it did the people of China to the sacred island, which had become the great metropolis of their common faith, and to the sympathy and hospitality with which the Singhalese welcomed the frequent visits of their distant co-religionists.

[Footnote 1: This is apparent from the fact that their statements are not confined to descriptions of the customs and character of the male Singhalese, but exhibit internal evidence that they had been introduced to their families, and had had opportunities of noting peculiarities in the customs of the females. They describe their dress, their mode of tying their hair, their treatment of infants and children, the fact that the women as well as the men were addicted to chewing betel, and that they did not sit down to meals with their husbands, but "retired to some private apartments to eat their food."]

This interchange of courtesies was eagerly encouraged by the sovereigns of the two countries. The emperors of China were accustomed to send ambassadors, both laymen and theologians, to obtain images and relics of Buddha, and to collect transcripts of the sacred books, which contained the exposition of his doctrines[1];--and the kings of Ceylon despatched embassies in return, authorised to reciprocate these religious sympathies and do homage to the imperial majesty of China.

[Footnote 1: _Hiouen-Thsang_, Introd. STANISLAS JULIEN, p. 1.]

The historical notices of the island by the Chinese relative to the period immediately preceding the fourteenth century, are meagre, and confined to a native tradition that "about 400 years after the establishment of the kingdom, the Great Dynasty fell into decay, when there was but one man of wisdom and virtue belonging to the royal house to whom the people became attached: the monarch thereupon caused him to be thrown into prison; but the lock opened of its own accord, and the king thus satisfied of his sacred character did not venture to take his life, but drove him into banishment to India (Tëen chuh), whence, after marrying a royal princess, he was recalled to Ceylon on the death of the tyrant, where he reigned twenty years, and was succeeded by his son, _Po-kea Ta-To_."[l] In this story may probably be traced the extinction of the "Great Dynasty" of Ceylon, on the demise of Maha-Sen, and the succession of the Sulu-wanse, or Lower Dynasty, in the person of Kitsiri Maiwan, A.D. 301, whose son, Detu Tissa, may possibly be the _Po-kea Ta-to_ of the Chinese Chronicle.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Leang-shoo_, "History of the Leang Dynasty," b. liv. p. 10.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, c. xxxvii. p 242. TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, &c., p. 24.]

The visit of Fa Hian, the zealous Buddhist pilgrim, in the fifth century of our era, has been already frequently adverted to.[1] He landed in Ceylon A.D. 412, and remained for two years at Anarajapoora, engaged in transcribing the sacred books. Hence his descriptions are confined almost exclusively to the capital; and he appears to have seen little of the rest of the island. He dwells with delight on the magnificence of the Buddhist buildings, the richness of their jewelled statues, and the prodigious dimensions of the dagobas, one of which, from its altitude and solidity, was called the "_Mountain without fear_."[2] But what most excited his admiration was his finding no less than 5000 Buddhist priests at the capital, 2000 in a single monastery on a mountain (probably Mihintala), and between 50,000 and 60,000 dispersed throughout the rest of the island.[3] Pearls and gems were the wealth of Ceylon; and from the latter the king derived a royalty of three out of every ten discovered.[4]

[Footnote 1: The _Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki_, or "Description of Buddhist Kingdoms," by FA-HIAN, has been translated by Rémusat, and edited by Klaproth and Landresse, 4to. Paris, 1836.]

[Footnote 2: In Chinese, _Woo-wei_.]

[Footnote 3: _Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki_, c. xxxviii. pp. 333, 334.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, c. xxxvii. p. 328.]

The earliest embassy from Ceylon recorded in the Chinese[1] annals at the beginning of the fifth century, appears to have proceeded overland by way of India, and was ten years before reaching the capital of China. It was the bearer of "a jade-stone image of Buddha, exhibiting every colour in purity and richness, in workmanship unique, and appearing to be beyond human art[2]."

[Footnote 1: A.D. 405. Gibbon alludes with natural surprise to his discovery of the fact, that prior to the reign of Justinian, the "monarch of China had actually received an embassy from the Island of Ceylon."--_Decline and Fall_, c. xl.]

[Footnote 2: _Leang-shoo,_ A.D. 630, b. liv. p. 13. The ultimate fate of this renowned work of art is related in the _Leang-shoo,_ and several other of the Chinese chronicles. Throughout the | Tsin and Sung dynasties it was preserved in the Wa-kwan monastery at Nankin, along with five other statues and three paintings which were esteemed chefs-d'oeuvre. The jade-stone image was at length destroyed in the time of Tung-hwan, of the Tse dynasty; first, the arm was broken off, and eventually the body taken to make hair-pins and armlets for the emperor's favourite consort Pwan. _Nân-shè,_ b. lxxviii. p. 13. _Tung-tëen,_ b. cxciii. p. 8. _Tae-ping,_ &c., b. dcclxxxvii. p. 6.]

During the same century there were four other embassies from Ceylon. One A.D. 428, when the King Cha-cha Mo-ho-nan (Raja Maha Naama) sent an address to the emperor, which will be found in the history of the Northern Sung dynasty[1], together with a "model of the shrine of the tooth," as a token of fidelity;--two in A.D. 430 and A.D. 435; and a fourth A.D. 456, when five priests, of whom one was Nanté, the celebrated sculptor, brought as a gift to the emperor a "three-fold image of Buddha."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Sung-shoo,_ A.D. 487, b. xcvii. p. 5.]

[Footnote 2: Probably one in each of the three orthodox attitudes,--sitting in meditation, standing to preach, and reposing in "nirwana." _Wei-shoo,_ "History of the Wei Tartar Dynasty," A.D. 590, b. cxiv. p. 9.]

According to the Chinese annalists, the kings of Ceylon, in the sixth century, acknowledged themselves vassals of the Emperor of China, and in the year 515, on the occasion of Kumara Das raising the chatta, an envoy was despatched with tribute to China, together with an address, announcing the royal accession, in which the king intimates that he "had been desirous to go in person, but was deterred by fear of winds and waves."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Leang-shoo,_ b. liv. p. 10. _Y[(u]h-hae,_ "Ocean of Gems," A.D. 1331, b. clii. p. 33. The latter authority announces in like terms two other embassies with tribute to China, one in A.D. 523, and another in the reign of Kirti Sena, A.D. 527. The _Tsih-foo yuen-kwei_ mentions a similar mission in A.D. 531, b. dcccclxviii. p. 20.]

But although all these embassies are recorded in the Chinese chronicles as so many instances of acknowledged subjection, there is every reason to believe that the magniloquent terms in which they are described are by no means to be taken in a literal sense, and that the offerings enumerated were merely in recognition of the privilege of commercial intercourse subsisting between the two nations: but as the Chinese _literati_ affect a lofty contempt for commerce, all allusion to trade is omitted; and beyond an incidental remark in some works of secondary importance, the literature of China observes a dignified silence on the subject.

Only one embassy is mentioned in the seventh century, when Dalu-piatissa despatched "a memorial and offerings of native productions;"[1] but there were four in the century following[2], after which there occurs an interval of above five hundred years, during which the Chinese writers are singularly silent regarding Ceylon; but the Singhalese historians incidentally mention that swords and musical instruments were then imported from China, for the use of the native forces, and that Chinese soldiers took service in the army of Prakrama III. A.D. 1266.[3]

[Footnote 1: A.D. 670. _Ts[)i]h-foo yuen-kwei_, b. dcccclxx. p. 16. It was in the early part of this century, during a period of intestine commotion, when the native princes were overawed by the Malabars, that _Hiouen-Thsang_ met on the coast of India fugitives from Ceylon, from whom he derived his information as to the internal condition of the island, A.D. 629--633. See Transl. by STANISLAS JULIEN, "_La Vie de Hiouen-Thsang_," Paris, 1853, pp. 192--198.]

[Footnote 2: A.D. 711, A.D. 746, A.D. 750, and A.D. 762. _Ts[)i]h-foo yuen-kwei,_ b. dcccclxxi. p. 17. On the second occasion (A.D. 746) the king, who despatched the embassy, is described as sending as his envoy a "Brahman priest, the anointed graduate of the threefold repository, bearing as offerings head-ornaments of gold, precious neck-pendants, a copy of the great Prajna Sutra, and forty webs of fine cotton cloth."]

[Footnote 3: See the _Kawia-sakara_, written about A.D. 1410.]

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the only records of intercourse relate to the occasional despatch of public officers by the emperor of China to collect gems and medical drugs, and on three successive occasions during the earlier part of the Yuen dynasty, envoys were empowered to negotiate the purchase of the sacred alms-dish of Buddha.[1]

[Footnote 1: "In front of the image of Buddha there is a sacred bowl which is neither made of jade, nor copper, nor iron; it is of a purple colour and glossy, and when struck it sounds like glass. At the commencement of the Yuen dynasty, three separate envoys were sent to obtain it."--_Taou-e che-leo_ "Account of Island Foreigners," A.D. 1350, quoted in the "_Foreign Geography_", b. xviii. p. 15. This statement of the Chinese authorities corroborates the story told by MARCO POLO, possibly from personal knowledge, that "the Grand Khan Kublai sent ambassadors to Ceylon with a request that the king would yield to him possession of 'the great ruby' in return for the 'value of a city.'"--(_Travels,_ ch. xix.) The MS. of MARCO POLO, which contains the Latin version of his Travels, is deposited in the Imperial Library of Paris, and it is remarkable that a passage in it, which seems to be wanting in the Italian and other MSS., confirms this account of the Chinese annalists, and states that the alms-dish of Buddha was at length yielded by the King of Ceylon as a gift to Kublai Khan, and carried with signal honour to China. MARCO POLO describes the scene as something within his own knowledge:--"Quando autem magnus Kaan scivit quod isti ambaxiatores redibant cum reliquis istis, et erant prope terram ubi ipse tune erat, scilicet in Cambalu (Pekin), fecit mitti bandum quod omnes de terra obviarent reliquis istis (quia credebat quod essent reliquiæ de Adam) et istud fuit A.D. 1284."]

The beginning of the fifteenth century was, however, signalised by an occurrence, the details of which throw light over the internal condition of the island, at a period regarding which the native historians are more than usually obscure. At this time the glory of Buddhism had declined, and the political ascendency of the Tamils had enabled the Brahmans to taint the national worship by an infusion of Hindu observances. The _Se-yih-ke foo-choo,_ or "Description of Western Countries," says that in 1405 A.D. the reigning king, A-lee-koo-nae-wurh (Wijaya-bahu VI.), a native of Sollee, and "an adherent of the heterodox faith, so far from honouring Buddha, tyrannised over his followers."[1] He maltreated strangers resorting to the island, and plundered their vessels, "so that the envoys from other lands, in passing to and fro, were much annoyed by him."[2]

[Footnote 1: B. xviii. p. 15.]

[Footnote 2: _Ming-she_, b. cccxxvi, p. 7.]

In that year a mission from China, sent with incense and offerings to the shrine of the tooth, was insulted and waylaid, and with difficulty effected an escape from Ceylon.[1] According to the _Ming-she_, or History of the Ming Dynasty, "the Emperor _Ching-tsoo_, indignant at this outrage on his people; and apprehensive lest the influence of China in other countries besides Ceylon had declined during the reign of his predecessors, sent _Ching-Ho_, a soldier of distinction, with a fleet of sixty-two ships and a large military escort, on an expedition to visit the western kingdoms, furnished with proper credentials and rich presents of silk and gold. Ching-Ho touched at Cochin-China, Sumatra, Java, Cambodia, Siam, and other places, proclaiming at each the Imperial edict, and conferring Imperial gifts." If any of the princes refused submission, they were subdued by force; and the expedition returned to China in A.D. 1407, accompanied by envoys from the several nations, who came to pay court to the Emperor.

[Footnote 1: _Se-y[)i]h-ke foo-choo_, b. xviii. p. 15. This Chinese invasion of Ceylon has been already adverted to in the sketch of the domestic history of the island, Vol. I. Part IV. ch xii. p. 417.]

In the following year Ching-Ho, having been despatched on a similar mission to Ceylon, the king, A-lee-ko-nae-wah, decoyed his party into the interior, threw up stockades with a view to their capture, in the hope of a ransom, and ordered soldiers to the coast to plunder the Chinese junks. But Ching-Ho, by a dexterous movement, avoided the attack, and invested the capital[1], made a prisoner of the king, succeeded in conveying him on board his fleet, and carried him captive to China, together with his queen, his children, his officers of state, and his attendants. He brought away with him spoils, which were long afterwards exhibited in the Tsing-hae monastery at Nankin[2], and one of the commentaries on the _Si-yu-ke_ of Hiouen Thseng, states that amongst the articles carried away, was the sacred tooth of Buddha.[3] "In the sixth month of the year 1411," says the author of the _Ming-Shè_, "the prisoners were presented at court. The Chinese ministers pressed for their execution, but the emperor, in pity for their ignorance, set them at liberty, but commanded them to select a virtuous man from the same family to occupy the throne. All the captives declared in favour of Seay-pa-nae-na, whereupon an envoy was sent with a seal to invest him with the royal dignity, as a vassal of the empire," and in that capacity he was restored to Ceylon, the former king being at the same time sent back to the island.[4] It would be difficult to identify the names in this story with the kings of the period, were it not stated in another chronicle, the _Woo-hë[)o]-pëen_, or Record of the Ming Dynasty, that Seay-pa-nae-na was afterwards named _Pu-la-ko-ma Ba-zae La-cha_, in which it is not difficult to recognise "Sri Prakrama Bahu Raja," the sixth of his name, who transferred the seat of government from Gampola to Cotta, and reigned from A.D. 1410 to 1462.[5]

[Footnote 1: Gampola.]

[Footnote 2: _S[)u]h-Wan-hëen tung-kaou_, book ccxxxvi p. 12.]

[Footnote 3: See note at the end of this chapter.]

[Footnote 4: _Ming-shè,_ b. cccxxvi. p. 5. M. STANISLAS JULIEN intimates that the forthcoming volume of his version of the _Si-yu-ki_ will contain the eleventh book, in which an account will be given of the expedition of Ching Ho.--_Mémoires sur les Contrées Occidentales_, tom. i. p. 26. In anticipation of its publication, M. JULIEN has been so obliging as to make for me a translation of the passage regarding Ceylon, but it proves to be an annotation of the fifteenth century, which, by the inadvertence of transcribers, has become interpolated in the text of _Hiouen-Thsang_. It contains, however, no additional facts or statements beyond the questionable one before alluded to, that the sacred tooth of Buddha was amongst the spoils carried to Pekin by Ching Ho.]

[Footnote 5: _Woo-hë[)o]-pëen_, b. lxviii p. 5. See also the _Ta-tsing y[)i]h-tung_, a topographical account of the Manchoo empire, a copy of which is among the Chinese books in the British Museum. In the very imperfect version of the _Rajavali_, published by Upham, this important passage is rendered unintelligible by the want of fidelity of the translator, who has transformed the conqueror into a "Malabar," and ante-dated the event by a century. (_Rajavali_, p. 263.) I am indebted to Mr. De Alwis, of Colombo, for a correct translation of the original, which is as follows: "In the reign of King Wijayo-bahu, the King of Maha (great) China landed in Ceylon with an army, pretending that he was bringing tribute; King Wijayo-bahu, believing his professions (because it had been customary in the time of King Prakrama-bahu for foreign countries to pay tribute to Ceylon), acted incautiously, and he was treacherously taken prisoner by the foreign king. His four brothers were killed, and with them fell many people, and the king himself was carried captive to China." DE COUTO, in his continuation of DE BARROS, has introduced the story of the capture of the king by the Chinese; but he has confounded the dates, mystified the facts, and altered the name of the new sovereign to Pandar, which is probably only a corruption of the Singhalese _Banda_, "a prince."--DE COUTO, _Asia, &c_., dec. v. lib. i. c. vi. vol. ii. part i. p. 51. PURCHAS says: "The Singhalese language is thought to have been left there by the Chinois, some time Lord of Zeilan."--_Pilgrimage_, c. xviii. p. 552. The adventures of Ching Ho, in his embassy to the nations of the Southern Ocean, have been made the ground-work of a novel, the _Se-yung-ke_, which contains an enlarged account of his exploits in Ceylon; but fact is so overlaid with fiction that the passages are not worth extracting.]

For fifty years after this untoward event the subjection of Ceylon to China appears to have been humbly and periodically acknowledged; tribute was punctually paid to the emperor, and on two occasions, in 1416 A.D., and 1421 A.D., the kings of Ceylon were the bearers of it in person.[1] In 1430 A.D., at a period of intestine commotion, "Ching-Ho issued a proclamation for the pacification of Ceylon," and, at a somewhat later period, edicts were promulgated by the Emperor of China for the government of the island.[2] In 1459 A.D., however, the series of humiliations appears to have come abruptly to a close; for, "in that year," says the _Ming-shè_, "the King of Ceylon for the last time sent an envoy with tribute, and after that none ever came again."

[Footnote 1: _Ming-shè_, b. vii. pp. 4, 8.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., b. cccxxvii. p. 7.]

On their arrival in Ceylon early in the sixteenth century[1], the Portuguese found many evidences still existing of the intercourse and influence of the Chinese. They learned that at a former period they had established themselves in the south of the island; and both De Barros and De Couto ventured to state that the Singhalese were so called from the inter-marriage of the Chinese with the Gallas or Chalias, the caste who in great numbers still inhabit the country to the north of Point de Galle.[2] But the conjecture is erroneous, the derivation of Singhala is clearly traced to the Sanskrit "_Singha_;" besides which, in the alphabet of the Singhalese, _n_ and _g_ combine to form a single and insoluble letter.

[Footnote 1: A.D. 1565.]

[Footnote 2: "Serem os Chijis senhores da costa Choromandel, parte do Malabar e desta Ilha Ceilão. Na qual Ilha leixáram huma lingua, a que elles chamam Chingálla, e aos proprios póvos Chingallas, principalmente os que vivem da ponta de Gálle por diante na face da terra contra o Sul, e Oriente: e por ser pegada neste Cabo Gálle, chamou á outra gente, que vivia do meio da ilha pera cima, aos que aqui habitavam _Chingilla_ e á lingua delles tambem, _quasi como se dissessem lingua ou gente dos Chijo de Galle"_--DE BARROS, _Asia, &c._, Dec. iii. lib. ii. c. i. DE COUTO'S account is as follows: "E como os Chins formam os primeiros que navegáram pelo Oriente, tendo noticia da canella, acudíram muitos 'juncos' aquella Ilha a carregar della, e dalli a levaram aos portos de Persia, e da Arabia donde passou á Europa--de que se deixaram ficar muitos Chins na terra, e se misturáram por casamentos com os naturaes; _dantre quem nascêram huns mistços que se ficaram chamando Cim-Gallás; ajuntando o nome dos naturaes, que eram Gallas aos dos Chins_, que vieram por tempos a ser tão famosos, que deram o seu nome a todos os da Ilha."--_Asia, &c._ Dec. v. lib. ch. v.]

In process of time, every trace disappeared of the former presence of the Chinese in Ceylon--embassies ceased to arrive from the "Flowery Kingdom," Chinese vessels deserted the harbours of the island, pilgrims no longer repaired to the shrines of Buddha; and even the inscriptions became obliterated in which the imperial offerings to the temples were recorded on the rocks.[1] The only mementos which remain at the present day to recall their ancient domestication in the island, is the occasional appearance in the mountain villages of an itinerant vender of sweetmeats, or a hut in the solitary forest near some cave, from which an impoverished Chinese renter annually gathers the edible nest of the swallow.

[Footnote 1: _S[)u]h-Wan-heen tung-kaou_, book ccxxxvi. p. 12.]

* * * * *

NOTE.

As it may be interesting to learn the opinions of the Chinese at the present day regarding Ceylon, the following account of the island has been translated for me by Dr. Lockhart, of Shanghae, from a popular work on geography, written by the late lieutenant-governor of the province of Fokhien, assisted by some foreigners. The book is called Ying-hw[)a]n-che-ke, or "The General Account of the Encircling Ocean."

"Se[)i]h-lan is situated in Southern India, and is a large island in the sea, on the south-east coast, its circumference being about 1000 le (300 miles), having in the centre lofty mountains; on the coast the land is low and marshy. The country is characterised by much rain and constant thunder. The hills and valleys are beautifully ornamented with flowers and trees of great variety and beauty, the cries of the animals rejoicing together fill the air with gladness, and the landscape abounds with splendour. In the forests are many elephants, and the natives use them instead of draught oxen or horses. The people are all of the Buddhistic religion; it is said that Buddha was born here: he was born with an excessive number of teeth. The grain is not sufficient for the inhabitants, and they depend for food on the various districts of India. Gems are found in the hills, and pearls on the sea coast; the cinnamon that is produced in the country is excellent, and much superior to that of Kwang-se. In the middle of the Ming dynasty, the Portuguese seized upon Se[)i]h-lan and established marts on the sea coast, which by schemes the Hollanders took from them. In the first year of Kia-King (1795), the English drove out the Hollanders and took possession of the sea coast. At this time the people of Se[)i]h-lan, on account of their various calamities or invasions, lost heart. Their city on the coast, called Colombo, was attacked by the English, and the inhabitants were dispersed or driven away; then the whole island fell into the hands of the English, who eventually subjected it. The harbour for rendezvous on the coast is called Ting-ko-ma-lé."

To this the Chinese commentator adds, on the authority of a work, from which he quotes, entitled, "A Treatise on the Diseases of all the Kingdoms of the Earth:"--

"The Kingdom of Se[)i]h-lan was anciently called Lang-ya-sew; the passage from Soo-mun-ta-che (Sumatra), with a favourable wind, is twelve days and nights; the country is extensive, and the people numerous, and the products abundant, but inferior to Kiva-wa (Java). In the centre are lofty mountains, which yield the A-k[)u]h (crow and pigeon) gems; after every storm of rain they are washed down from the hills, and gathered among the sand. From Chang-tsun, Lin-yih in the extreme west, can be seen. In the foreign language, the high mountain is called Se[)i]h-lan; hence the name of the island. It is said Buddha (Sh[)i]h-ka) came from the island of Ka-lon (the gardens of Buddha), and ascended this mountain, on which remains the trace of his foot. Below the hill there is a monastery, in which they preserve the nëe-pwan (a Buddhistic phrase, signifying the world; literally rendered, his defiling or defiled vessel) and the Shay-le-tsze, or relics of Buddha.

"In the sixth year of his reign (1407), Yung-l[)o], of the Ming dynasty, sent an ambassador extraordinary, Ching-Ho and others, to transmit the Imperial mandate to the King A-l[)e]e-j[)o]-nai-wah, ordering him to present numerous and valuable offerings and banners to the monastery, and to erect a stone tablet, and rewarding him by his appointment as tribute bearer; A-l[)e]e-j[)o]-nai-wurh ungratefully refusing to comply, they seized him, in order to bring him to terms, and chose from among his nearest of kin A-pa-nae-na, and set him on the throne. For fourteen years, Tëen-ching, Kwa-wa (Java), Mwan-che-kea, Soo-mun-ta-che (Sumatra), and other countries, sent tribute in the tenth year of Chin-tung, and the third year of Teen-shun they again sent tribute."[1]

[Footnote 1: There is here some confusion in the chronology; as Teen-shun reigned before Ching-tung.]

"I have heard from an American, A-pe-le[1], that Se[)i]h-lan was the original country of Teen-chuh (India), and that which is now called Woo-yin-too was Teen-ch[)u]h, but in the course of time the names have become confused. According to the records of the later Han dynasty, Teen-ch[)u]h was considered the Shin-t[)u]h, and that the name is not that of an island, but of the whole country. I do not know what proof there is for A-pe-le's statement."

[Footnote 1: Mr. Abeel, an American missionary.]

CHAP. IV.

CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE MOORS, GENOESE, AND VENETIANS.

The rapid survey of the commerce of India during the middle ages, which it has been necessary to introduce into the preceding narrative, will also serve to throw light on a subject hitherto but imperfectly investigated.

The most remarkable of the many tribes which inhabit Ceylon are the Mahometans, or, as they are generally called on the island, the "Moor-men," energetic and industrious communities of whom are found on all parts of the coast, but whose origin, adventures, and arrival are amongst the historical mysteries of Ceylon.

The meaningless designation of "Moors," applied to them, is the generic term by which it was customary at one time, in Europe, to describe a Mahometan, from whatsoever country he came, as the word Gentoo[1] was formerly applied in England to the inhabitants of Hindustan, without distinction of race. The practice probably originated from the Spaniards having given that name to the followers of the Prophet, who, traversing Morocco, overran the peninsula in the seventh and eighth centuries.[2] The epithet was borrowed by the Portuguese, who, after their discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope, bestowed it indiscriminately upon the Arabs and their descendants, whom, in the sixteenth century, they found established as traders in every port on the Asian and African coast, and whom they had good reason to regard as their most formidable competitors for the commerce of the East.

[Footnote 1: The practice originated with the Portuguese, who applied to any unconverted native of India the term _gentio_, "idolator" or "barbarian."]

[Footnote 2: The Spanish word "_Moro_" and the Portuguese, "_Mouro_" may be traced either to the "Mauri," the ancient people of Mauritania, now Morocco, or to the modern name of "Moghrib," by which the inhabitants, the Moghribins, designate their country.]

Particular events have been assumed as marking the probable date of their first appearance in Ceylon. Sir Alexander Johnston, on the authority of a tradition current amongst their descendants, says, that "the first Mahometans who settled there were driven from Arabia in the early part of the eighth century, and established themselves at Jaffna, Manaar, Koodramali, Putlam, Colombo, Barberyn, Point de Galle, and Trincomalie."[1] The Dutch authorities, on the other hand, hold that the Moors were Moslemin only by profession, that by birth they were descendants of a mean and detestable Malabar caste, who in remote times had been converted to Islam through intercourse with the Arabs of Bassora and the Red Sea; that they had frequented the coasts of India as seamen, and then infested them as pirates; and that their first appearance in Ceylon was not earlier than the century preceding the landing of the Portuguese.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Trans. Roy. Asiat. Society_, 1827, A.D. vol. i. 538. The Moors, who were the informants of Sir Alexander Johnston, probably spoke on the equivocal authority of the _Tohfut-ul-mujahideen_, which is generally, but erroneously, described as a narrative of the settlement of the Mahometans in Malabar. Its second chapter gives an account of "the manner in which the Mahometan religion was first propagated" there; and states that its earliest apostles were a Sheikh and his companions, who touched at Cranganore about 822 A.D., when on their journey as pilgrims to the sacred foot-print on Adam's Peak. (ROWLANDSON, _Orient. Transl. Fund_, pp. 47. 55.) But the introduction of the new faith into this part of India was subsequent to the arrival of the Arabs themselves, who had long before formed establishments at numerous places on the coast.]

[Footnote 2: VALENTYN, ch. xv. p. 214.]

The truth, however, is, that there were Arabs in Ceylon ages before the earliest date named in these conjectures[1]; they were known there as traders centuries before Mahomet was born, and such was their passion for enterprise, that at one and the same moment they were pursuing commerce in the Indian Ocean[2], and manning the galleys of Marc Antony in the fatal sea-fight at Actium.[3] The author of the _Periplus_ found them in Ceylon about the first Christian century, Cosmas Indico-pleustes in the sixth; and they had become so numerous in China in the eighth, as to cause a tumult at Canton.[4] From the tenth till the fifteenth century, the Arabs, as merchants, were the undisputed masters of the East; they formed commercial establishments in every country that had productions to export, and their vessels sailed between every sea-port from Sofala to Bab-el-Mandeb, and from Aden to Sumatra.[5] The "Moors," who at the present day inhabit the coasts of Ceylon, are the descendants of these active adventurers; they are not purely Arabs in blood, but descendants from Arabian ancestors by intermarriage with the native races who embraced the religion of the Prophet.[6] The Singhalese epithet of "_Marak-kala-minisu_" or "Mariners," describes at once their origin and occupation; but during the middle ages, when Ceylon was the Tyre of Asia, these immigrant traders became traders in all the products of the island, and the brokers through whose hands they passed in exchange for the wares of foreign countries. At no period were they either manufacturers or producers in any department; their genius was purely commercial, and their attention was exclusively devoted to buying and selling what had been previously produced by the industry and ingenuity of others. They were dealers in jewelry, connoisseurs in gems, and collectors of pearls; and whilst the contented and apathetic Singhalese in the villages and forests of the interior passed their lives in the cultivation of their rice-lands, and sought no other excitement than the pomp and ceremonial of their temples; the busy and ambitious Mahometans on the coast built their warehouses at the ports, crowded the harbours with their shipping, and collected the wealth and luxuries of the island, its precious stones, its dye-woods, its spices and ivory, to be forwarded to China and the Persian Gulf.

[Footnote 1: MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE, on the authority of Agatharchidos (as quoted by Diodorus and Photius), says, that "from all that appears in that author, we should conclude that two centuries before the Christian era, the trade (between India and the ports of Sabæa) was entirely in the hands of the Arabs."--_Hist. India_, b. iii. c. x. p. 167.]

[Footnote 2: Pliny, b. vi. c. 22.]

[Footnote 3:

"Omnis eo terrore Ægyptus et Indi Omnes Arabes vertebant terga Sabæi."

VIRGIL, _Æn._ viii. 705.]

[Footnote 4: ABOU-ZEYD, vol. i. p. xlii. cix.]

[Footnote 5: VINCENT, vol. ii. p. 451. The Moors of Ceylon are identical in race with "the Mopillees of the Malabar coast."--McKENZIE, _Asiat. Res._, vol. vi. p. 430.]

[Footnote 6: In a former work, "_Christianity in Ceylon_," I was led, by incorrect information, to describe a section of the Moors as belonging to the sect of the Shiahs, and using the Persian language in the service of their mosques (c. i. note, p. 34). There is reason to believe that at a former period there were Mahometans in Ceylon to whom this description would apply; but at the present day the Moors throughout the island are, I believe, universally Sonnees, belonging to one of the four orthodox sects called _Shafees_, and using Arabic as their ritual dialect. Their vernacular is Tamil, mixed with a number of Arabic words; and all their religious books, except the Koran, are in that dialect. Casie Chitty, the erudite District Judge of Chilaw, writes to me that "the Moors of Ceylon believe themselves to be of the posterity of Hashem; and, according to one tradition, their progenitors were driven from Arabia by Mahomet himself, as a punishment for their cowardice at the battle of Ohod. But according to another version, they fled from the tyranny of the Khalif Abu al Malek ben Merivan, in the early part of the eighth century. Their first settlement in India was formed at Kail-patam, to the east of Cape Comorin, whence that place is still regarded as the 'father-land of the Moors.'"

Another of their traditions is, that their first landing-place in Ceylon was at Barberyn, south of Caltura, in the 402nd year of the Hejira, (A.D. 1024.) These legends would seem to refer to the arrival of some important section of the Moors, but not to the first appearance of this remarkable people in Ceylon. The _Ceylon Gazetteer_, Cotta, 1834, p. 254, contains a valuable paper by Casie Chitty on "the Manners and Customs of the Moors of Ceylon."]

MARCO POLO, in the thirteenth century, found the Moors in uncontested possession of this busy and lucrative trade, and BARBOSA, in his account of the island, A.D. 1519, says, that not only were they to be found in every sea-port and city, conducting and monopolising its commerce, but Moors from the coast of Malabar were continually arriving to swell their numbers, allured by the facilities of commerce and the unrestrained freedom enjoyed under the government.[1] In process of time their prosperity invested them with political influence, and in the decline of the Singhalese monarchy they took advantage of the feebleness of the king of Cotta, to direct armed expeditions against parts of the coast, to plunder the inhabitants, and supply themselves with elephants and pearls.[2] They engaged in conspiracies against the native princes; and Wijayo Bahu VII., who was murdered in 1534, was slain by a turbulent Moorish leader called Soleyman, whom his eldest son and successor had instigated to the crime.[3]

[Footnote 1: "Molti Mori Malabari vengono à stantiare in questa isola per esser in grandissima libertà, oltra tutte le commodita e delitie del mondo," etc.--ODOARDO BARBOSA, _Sommario delle Indie Orientale_, in _Ramusio_, vol. i. p. 313.]

[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 274.]

[Footnote 3: Ib., p. 284. PORCACCHI, in his _Isolario_, written at Venice A.D. 1576, thus records the traditional reputation of the Moors of Ceylon:--"I Mori ch' habitano hoggi la Taprobana fanno grandissimi traffichi, nauigando per tutto: et piu anchora vengono da diverse parte molte mercantie, massimamente dal paese di Cambaia, con coralli, cinabrio, et argento vivo. Ma son questi Mori perfidi et ammazzono spesse, volte i lor Re; et ne creano degli altri."--Page 188.]

The appearance of the Portuguese in Ceylon at this critical period, served not only to check the career of the Moors, but to extinguish the independence of the native princes; and looking to the facility with which the former had previously superseded the Malabars, and were fast acquiring an ascendency over the Singhalese chiefs, it is not an unreasonable conjecture that, but for this timely appearance of a Christian power in the Island, Ceylon, instead of a possession of the British crown, might at the present day have been a Mahometan kingdom, under the rule of some Arabian adventurer.

But although the position of the Arabs in relation to the commerce of the East underwent no unfavourable change prior to the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian seas, numerous circumstances combined in the early part of the sixteenth century to bring other European nations into communication with the East.

The productions of India, whether they passed by the Oxus to the Caspian, or were transported in caravans from the Tigris to the shores of the Black Sea, were poured into the magazines of Constantinople, the merchants of which, previous to the fall of the Lower Empire, were the most opulent in the world. During the same period, Egypt commanded the trade of the Red Sea; and received, through Aden, the luxuries of the far East, with which she supplied the Moorish princes of Spain, and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean.[1]

[Footnote 1: ODOARDO BARBOSA, In Ramusio, vol. i. p. 292. BALDELLI BONI, _Relazione dell' Europa e dell' Asia,_ lib. ix. ch. xlvii FARIA Y SOUSA; _Portug. Asia,_ part i. ch. viii.]

Even when the dominion of the Khalifs was threatened by the rising power of the Turks, and long after the subsidence of the commotions and vicissitudes which marked the period of the Crusades, part of this lucrative commerce was still carried to Alexandria, by the Nile and its canals. The Genoese and Venetians, each eager to engross the supply of Europe, sought permission from the Emperors to form establishments on the shores of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The former advanced their fortified factories as far eastward as Tabriz, to meet the caravans returning from the Persian Gulf[1], and the latter, in addition to the formation of settlements at Tyre, Beyrout, and Acre[2], acquired after the fourth crusade, succeeded (in defiance of the interdict of the Popes against trading with the infidel) in negotiating a treaty with the Mamelukes for a share in the trade of Alexandria.[3] It was through Venice that England and the western nations obtained the delicacies of India and China, down to the period when the overland route and the Red Sea were deserted for the grander passage by the Cape of Good Hope.[4]

[Footnote 1: GIBBON, _Decl. and Fall,_ ch. lxiii.]

[Footnote 2: DARU, _Hist. de Venise_ lib. xix. vol. iv. p. 74. MACPHERSON'S _Annals of Commerce,_ vol. i. p. 370.]

[Footnote 3: So impatient were the Venetians to grasp the trade of Alexandria that Marino Sanuto, about the year 1321 A.D., endeavoured to excite a new crusade in order to wrest it from the Sultan of Egypt by force of arms, _Secreta Fidelium Crucis,_ in BONGARS, _Gesta Dei per Francos,_ Hanau, 1611. ADAM SMITH, _Wealth of Nations,_ b. iv. ch, vii DARU, _Hist. de Venise,_ lib. xix, vol. iv, p. 88.]

[Footnote 4: GIBBON, _Decl. and Fall_, ch. lx. The last of the Venetion "argosies" which reached the shores of England was cast away on the Isle of Wight, A.D. 1587.]

Another great event which stimulated the commercial activity of the Italians in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was the extraordinary progress of the Mongols, who in an incredibly short space of time absorbed Central Asia into one powerful empire, overthrew the ancient monarchy of China, penetrated to the heart of Russia, and directed their arms with equal success both against Poland and Japan. The popes and the sovereigns of Europe, alike alarmed for their dominions and their faith, despatched ambassadors to the Great Khan; the mission resulted in allaying apprehension for the further advance of their formidable neighbours towards the west, and the vigilant merchants of Venice addressed themselves to effect an opening for trade in the new domains of the Tartar princes.

It is to this commercial enterprise that we are indebted for the first authentic information regarding China and India, that reached Europe after the silence of the middle ages; and the voyages of the Venetians, in some of which the realities of travel appear as extra-ordinary as the incidents of romance, contain accounts of Ceylon equally interesting and reliable.

MARCO POLO, who left Venice as a youth, in the year 1271, and resided seventeen years at the court of Kubla Khan, was the first European who penetrated to China Proper; whence he embarked in A.D. 1291, at Fo-Kien, and passing through the Straits of Malacca, rested at Ceylon, on his homeward route by Ormuz.

He does not name the port in Ceylon at which he landed, but he calls the king _Sender-naz,_ a name which may possibly be identified with the Malay Chandra-banu, who twice invaded the island during the reign of Pandita Prakrama-bahu III.[1]

[Footnote 1: Pandita Prakrama Bahoo III. was also called Kalikalla Saahitya Sargwajnya,--TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 44.]

He repeats the former exaggerated account as to the dimensions of Ceylon; he says that it was believed to have been anciently larger still, and he shows incidentally that as early as the thirteenth century, the Arab sailors possessed charts of the island which they used in navigating the Indian seas.[1] Then, as now, the universal costume of the Singhalese was the cotton "comboy," worn only on the lower half of the body[2], their grains were sesamum and rice; their food the latter with milk and flesh-meat; and their drink coco-nut toddy, which Marco calls "wine drawn from the trees." He dwells with rapture on the gems and costly stones, and, above all, on the great ruby, a span long, for which Kubla Khan offered the value of a city. With singular truth he says, "the people are averse to a military life, abject and timid, and when they have occasion to employ soldiers, they procure them from other countries in the vicinity of the Mahometans." From this it would seem that six hundred years ago, it was the practice in Ceylon, as it is at the present day, to recruit the forces of the island from the Malays.

[Footnote 1: I have seen with the sailors of the Maldives, who resort to Ceylon at the present day, charts evidently copied from very ancient originals.]

[Footnote 2: See the drawing, page 612.]

The next Venetian whose travels qualified him to speak of Ceylon was the Minorite friar ODORIC, of Portenau in Friuli[1], who, setting out from the Black Sea in 1318, traversed the Asian continent to China, and returned to Italy after a journey of twelve years. In Ceylon he was struck by the number of serpents, and the multitude of wild animals, lions (leopards?), bears, and elephants. "In it he saw the mountain on which Adam for the space of 500 years mourned the death of Abel, and on which his tears and those of Eve formed, as men believed, a fountain;" but this Odoric discovered to be a delusion, as he saw the spring gushing from the earth, and its waters "flowing over jewels, but abounding with leeches and blood-suckers." The natives were permitted by the king to collect the gems; and in doing so they smear their bodies with the juice of lemons to protect them from the leeches. The wild creatures, they said, however dangerous to the inhabitants of the island, were harmless to strangers. In that island Odoric saw "birds with two heads," which possibly implies that he saw the hornbill[2], whose huge and double casque may explain the expression.

[Footnote 1: _Itinerarium_ Fratris ODORICI de Foro Julii de Portu-Vahonis.]

[Footnote 2: _Buceros Pica_. See _ante_, Part II. ch. ii. p. 167.]

In the succeeding century[1] the most authentic account of Ceylon is given by NICOLO DI CONTI, another Venetian, who, though of noble family, had settled as a merchant at Damascus, whence he had travelled over Persia, India, the Eastern Archipelago, and China. Returning by way of Arabia and the Red Sea, in 1444, he fell into danger amongst some fanatical Mahometans, and was compelled to renounce the faith of a Christian, less from regard for his own safety than apprehension for that of his children and wife. For this apostacy he besought the pardon of Pope Eugenius IV., who absolved him from guilt on condition that he should recount his adventures to the apostolic secretary, Poggio Bracciolini, by whom they have been preserved in his dissertation on "_The Vicissitudes of Fortune_."[2]

[Footnote 1: Among the writers on India in the 14th century, A.D. 1323, was the Dominican missionary JOURDAIN CATALANI, or "Jordan de Severac," regarding whose title of _Bishop of Colombo_, "Episcopus Columbensis," it is somewhat uncertain whether his see was in Ceylon, or at Coulam (Quilon), on the Malabar coast. The probability in favour of the latter is sustained by the fact of the very limited accounts of the island contained in his _Mirabilia_, a work in which he has recorded his observations on the Dekkan. _Cinnamon he describes as a production of Malabar_, and Ceylon he extols only for its gems, pre-eminent among which were two rubies, one worn by the king, suspended round his neck, and the other which, when grasped in the hand could not be covered, by the fingers, "Non credo mundum habere universum tales duo lapides, nec tanti pretii." The MS. of Fra. JORDANUS'S _Mirabilia_ has been printed in the _Recueil des Voyages_ of the Société Géogr. of Paris, vol. i. p. 49. GIOVANNI DE MARIGNOLA, a Florentine and Legate of Clement VI., landed in Ceylon in 1349 A.D., at which time the legitimate king was driven away and the supreme power left in the hands of a eunuch whom he calls _Coja-Joan_, "pessimus Saracenus." The legate's attention was chiefly directed to "the mountain opposite Paradise."--DOBNER, _Monum. Histor. Boemiæ._ Pragæ, 1764-85.

JOHN OF HESSE in his "Itinerary" (in which occurs the date A.D. 1398) says, "Adsunt et in quâdam insulâ nomine Taprobanes viri crudelissimi et moribus asperi: permagnas habent aures, et illas plurimis gemmis ornare dicuntur. _Hi carnes humanas pro summis deliciis comedunt_."--JOHANNIS DE HESSE, Presbyteri _Itinerarium_, etc.]

[Footnote 2: _De Varietate Fortunæ_, Basil, 1538. An admirable translation of the narrative of DI CONTI has recently been made by R.H. Major, Esq., for the Hakluyt Society. London, 1857.]

Di Conti is, I believe, the first European who speaks of cinnamon as a production of Ceylon. "It is a tree," he says, "which grows there in abundance, and which very much resembles our thick willows, excepting that the branches do not grow upwards, but spread horizontally; the leaves are like those of the laurel, but somewhat larger; the bark of the branches is thinnest and best, that of the trunk thick and inferior in flavour. The fruit resembles the berries of the laurel; the Indians extract from it an odoriferous oil, and the wood, after the bark has been stripped from it, is used by them for fuel."[1]

[Footnote 1: POGGIO makes Nicolo di Conti say that the island contains a lake, in the middle of which is a city three miles in circumference; but this is evidently an amplification of his own, borrowed from the passage in which Pliny (whom Poggio elsewhere quotes) alludes to the fabulous Lake Megisba.--PLINY, lib. vi. ch. xxiv.]

The narrative of Di Conti, as it is printed by Ramusio, from a Portuguese version, contains a passage not found in Poggio, in which it is alleged that a river of Ceylon, called Arotan, has a fish somewhat like the torpedo, but whose touch, instead of electrifying, produces a fever so long as it is held in the hand, relief being instantaneous on letting it go.[1]

[Footnote 1: DI CONTI in _Ramusio_, vol. i. p. 344. There are two other Italian travellers of this century who touched at Ceylon; one a "GENTLEMAN OF FLORENCE," whose story is printed by Ramusio (but without the author's name), who accompanied Vasco de Gama, in the year 1479, in his voyage to Calicut, and who speaks of the trees "che fanno la canella in molta perfettione."--Vol. i. p. 120. The other is GIROLAMO DI SANTO STEFANO, a Genoese, who, in pursuit of commerce, made a journey to India which he described on his return in 1499, in a letter inserted by Ramusio in his collection of voyages. He stayed but one day in the island, and saw only its coco-nuts, jewels, and cinnamon.--Vol. i. p. 345.]

The sixteenth century was prolific in navigators, the accounts of whose adventures served to diffuse throughout Europe a general knowledge of Ceylon, at least as it was known superficially before the arrival of the Portuguese. Ludovico Barthema, or Varthema, a Bolognese[1], remained at a port on the west coast[2] for some days in 1506. The four kings of the island being busily engaged in civil war[3], he found it difficult to land, but he learned that permission to search for jewels at the foot of Adam's Peak might be obtained by the payment of five ducats, and restoring as a royalty all gems over ten carats. Fruit was delicious and abundant, especially artichokes and oranges[4], but rice was so insufficiently cultivated that the sovereigns of the island were dependent for their supplies upon the King of Narsingha, on the continent of India.[5] This statement of Barthema is without qualification; there can be little doubt that it applied chiefly to the southern parts of the island, and that the north was still able to produce food sufficient for the wants of the inhabitants.

[Footnote 1: _Itinerario de_ LUDOVICO DE VARTHEMA, _Bolognese, no lo Egypto, ne la Suria, ne la Arabia Deserta e Felice, ne la Persia, ne la India, e ne la, Æthiopia--la fede el vivere e costume de tutte le prefatte provincie._ Roma. 1511, A.D.]

[Footnote 2: Probably Colombo.]

[Footnote 3: These conflicts and the actors in them are described in the _Rajavali_, p. 274.]

[Footnote 4: "Carzofoli megliori che li nostri, melangoli dolci, li megiiori credo, che siano nel mondo."--_Varthema_, pt. xxvii.]

[Footnote 5: "In questo paese non nasce riso; ma ne li viene da terra ferma. Li re de quella isola sono tributarii d'il re de Narsinga per repetto del riso."--_Itin_., pt. xxvii. See also BARBOSA, in _Ramusio_, vol. i p. 312.]

Barthema found the supply of cinnamon small, and so precarious that the cutting took place but once in three years. The Singhalese were at that time ignorant of the use of gunpowder[1], and their arms were swords and lance-heads mounted on shafts of bamboo; "with these they fought, but their battles were not bloody." The Moors were in possession of the trade, and the king sent a message to Varthema and his companions, expressive of his desire to purchase their commodities; but in consequence of a hint that payment would be regulated by the royal discretion, the Italians weighed anchor at nightfall and bade a sudden adieu to Ceylon.

[Footnote 1: The _Rajavali_, p. 279, describes the wonder of the Singhalese on witnessing for the first time the discharge of a cannon by the Portuguese who had landed at Colombo, A.D. 1517. "A ball shot from one of them, after flying some leagues, will break a castle of marble, or even of iron."]

Early in the sixteenth century, ODOARDO BARBOSA, a Portuguese captain, who had sailed in the Indian seas, compiled a _summary_ of all that was then known concerning the countries of the East[1], with which the people of Portugal had been brought into connection by their recent discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope. Writing partly from personal observation, but chiefly from information obtained from the previous accounts of Di Conti, Barthema and Corsali[2], he speaks of that "grandest and most lovely island, which the Moors of Arabia, Persia, and Syria call Zeilam, but the Indians, _Tenarisim_, or the _land of delights_." Its ports were crowded with Moors, who monopolised commerce, and its inhabitants, whose complexions were fair and their stature robust and stately, were altogether devoted to pleasure and indifferent to arms.

[Footnote 1: _Il Sommario delle Inde Orientale di_ ODOARDO BARBOSA, Lisbon, 1519. A sketch of the life of BARBOSA is given in CRAWFURD'S _Dictionary of the Indian Islands_, p. 39.]

[Footnote 2: Two letters written by ANDREA CORSALI, a Florentine, dated from Cochin, A.D. 1515, and addressed to the Grand Duke Julian de Medicis.]

Barbosa appears to have associated chiefly with the Moors, whose character and customs he describes almost as they exist at the present day. He speaks of their heads, covered with the finest handkerchiefs; of their ear-rings, so heavy with jewels that they hang down to their shoulders; of the upper parts of their bodies exposed, but the lower portions enveloped in silks and rich cloths, secured by an embroidered girdle. He describes their language as a mixture of Arabic and Malabar, and states that numbers of their co-religionists from the Indian coast resorted constantly to Ceylon, and established themselves there as traders, attracted by the delights of the climate, and the luxury and abundance of the island, but above all by the unlimited freedom which they enjoyed under its government. The duration of life was longer in Ceylon than in any country of India. With a profusion of fruits of every kind, and of animals fit for food, grain alone was deficient; rice was largely imported from the Coromandel coast, and sugar from Bengal.

Di Conti and Barthema had ascertained the existence of cinnamon as a production of the island, but Barbosa was the first European who asserted its superiority over that of all other countries. Elephants captured by order of the King, were tamed, trained, and sold to the princes of India, whose agents arrived annually in quest of them. The pearls of Manaar and the gems of Adam's Peak were the principal riches of Ceylon. The cats-eye, according to Barbosa, was as highly valued as the ruby by the dealers in India; and the rubies themselves were preferred to those of Pegu on account of their density[1]; but, compared with those of Ava, they were inferior in colour, a defect which the Moors were skilled in correcting by the of fire.

[Footnote 1: CESARE DE FREDERICI, a Venetian merchant, whose travels in India, A.D. 1563, have been translated by HICKOCKE, says of Zeilan, that, "they find there some rubies, but I have sold rubies well there that I brought with me from Pegu."--In Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 226.]

The residence of the King was at "Colmucho" (Colombo), whither vessels coming for elephants, cinnamon, and gems brought fine cloths from Cambay, together with saffron, coral, quicksilver, vermilion, and specie, and above all silver, which was more in demand than all the rest.

Such is the sum of intelligence concerning Ceylon recorded by the Genoese and Venetians during the three centuries in which they were conversant with the commerce of India. Their interest in the island had been rendered paramount by the events of the first Crusades, but it was extinguished by the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope. In the period which intervened the word _traveller_ may be said to have been synonymous with merchant[1], and when the occupation of the latter was withdrawn, the adventures of the other were suspended. The vessels of the strangers, in a very few years after their first appearance in the Indian seas, began to divert from its accustomed channel, the stream of commerce which for so many ages had flowed in the direction of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; and the galleons of Portugal superseded the caravans of Arabia and the argosies of Venice.

[Footnote 1: CÆSAR, FREDERICK opens the account of his wanderings in India, A.D. 1563, as follows:--"Having for the space of eighteen years continually coasted and travelled in many countries beyond the Indies, _wherein I have had both good and ill success in my travels"_ &c. He may be regarded as the last of the merchant voyagers of Venice, His book was translated into English almost simultaneously with its appearance in Italian, under the title of "_The Voyages and Travaile of M. Cæsar Fredrick, Merchant of Venice, into the East Indies, and beyond the Indies,_ written at sea, in the Hercules of London, the 25th March, 1588, and translated out of Italian by Mr. THOMAS HICKOCKE, Lond, 4to. 1588." The author, who left Venice in 1563, crossed over from Cape Comorin to Chilaw, to be present at the fishery of pearls, which he describes almost as it is practised at the present time. The divers engaged in it were all Christians (see _Christianity in Ceylon,_ ch. i. p. 11), under the care of friars of the order of St. Paul. Colombo was then a hold of the Portuguese, but without "walles or enemies;" and thence "to see how they gather the sinnamon, or take it from the tree that it groweth on (because the time that I was there, was the season that they gather it, in the moneth of Aprill) I, to satisfie my desire, went into a wood three miles from the citie, although in great danger, the Portugals being in arms, and in the field with the king of the country." Here he gives with great accuracy the particulars of the process of peeling cinnamon, as it is still practised by the Chalias.]

In his dismay the Sultan of Egypt threatened to demolish the sacred remains of Jerusalem, should the infidels of Europe persist in annihilating the trade of the Desert. Stimulated by the Doge, he attacked the Portuguese merchantmen in the Indian seas, and destroyed a convoy off the coast of Cochin; an outrage for which Albuquerque meditated a splendid revenge by an expedition to plunder Mecca and Medina, and to consummate the desolation of Egypt by diverting the Nile to the Red Sea, across Nubia or Abyssinia![1]

[Footnote 1: DARU, _Hist, de Venise,_ lib. xix. p. 114. RAYNAL, _Hist. des Deux Indes_, vol. i. p. 156. FARIA Y SOUZA, _Portug. Asia_, pt. i. ch. viii. vol i. pp. 64, 83, 107, 137.]

But the catastrophe was inevitable; the rich freights of India and China were carried round the "Cape of Storms," and no longer slowly borne on the Tigris and the Nile. The harbours of Ormus and of Bassora became deserted; and on the shores of Asia Minor, where the commerce of Italy had intrenched itself in castles of almost feudal pretension, the rivalries of Genoa and Venice were extinguished in the same calamitous decay.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.