CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.
Although mysterious rumours of the wealth and wonders of India had
reached the Western nations in the heroic ages, and although travellers
at a later period returning from Persia and the East had spread romantic
reports of its vastness and magnificence, it is doubtful whether Ceylon
had been heard of in Europe[1] even by name till the companions of
Alexander the Great, returning from his Indian expedition, brought back
accounts of what they had been told of its elephants and ivory, its
tortoises and marine monsters.[2]
[Footnote 1: Nothing is more strikingly suggestive of the extended
renown of Ceylon and of the different countries which maintained an
intercourse with the island, than the number and dissimilarity of the
names by which it has been known at various periods throughout Europe
and Asia. So remarkable is this peculiarity, that LASSEN has made "the
names of Taprobane" the subject of several learned disquisitions (_De
Taprobane Insula veter. cogn. Dissert_. sec. 2, p. 5; _Indische
Alterthumskunde_, vol. i. p. 200, note viii. p. 212, &c.); and BURNOUF
has devoted two elaborate essays to their elucidation, _Journ. Asiat_.
1826, vol. viii. p. 129. _Ibid_., 1857, vol. xxxiii. p. 1.
In the literature of the Brahmans, Lanka, from having been the scene of
the exploits of Rama, is as renowned as Ilion in the great epic of the
Greeks. "Taprobane," the name by which the island was first known to the
Macedonians, is derivable from the Pali "Tamba panni." The origin of the
epithet will be found in the _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 56. and it is
further noticed in the present work, Vol. I. P. 1. ch. i. p. 17, and P.
III. ch. ii. p. 330.--It has likewise been referred to the Sanskrit
"_Tambrapani_;" which, according to LASSEN, means "the great pond," or
"the pond covered with the red lotus," and was probably associated with
the gigantic tanks for which Ceylon is so remarkable. In later times
Taprobane was exchanged for Simundu, Palai-simundu, and Salike, under
which names it is described by PTOLEMY, the author of the _Periplus_,
and by MARCIANUS of Heraclæa. _Palai-simundu_, LASSEN conjectures to be
derived from the Sanskrit _Pali-simanta_, "the head of the sacred law,"
from Ceylon having become the great centre of the Buddhist faith (_De
Taprob_., p. 16; _Indische Alter_. vol. i. p. 200); and _Salike_ he
regards merely as a seaman's corruption of "Sinhala or Sihala," the name
chosen by the Singhalese themselves, and signifying "the dwelling place
of lions." BURNOUF suggests whether it may not be _Sri-Lanka_, or "Lanka
the Blessed."
_Sinhala_, with the suffix of "diva," or "dwipa" (island), was
subsequently converted into "Silan-dwipa" and "Seren-diva," whence the
"Serendib" of the Arabian navigators and their romances; and this in
later times was contracted into Zeilan by the Portuguese, Ceylan by the
Dutch, and Ceylon by the English. VINCENT, in his _Commentary on the
Periplus of the Erythræan Sea_, vol. ii. p. 493, has enumerated a
variety of other names borne by the island; and to all these might be
further added those assigned to it in China, in Siam, in Hindustan,
Kashmir, Persia, and other countries of the East. The learned ingenuity
of BOCHART applied a Hebrew root to expound the origin of Taprobane
(_Geogr. Sac._ lib. ii. ch. xxviii.); but the later researches of
TURNOUR, BURNOUF, and LASSEN have traced it with certainty to its Pali
and Sanskrit origin.]
[Footnote 2: GOSSELIN, in his _Recherches sur la Géographie des
Anciens_, tom. iii. p. 291, says that Onesicritus, the pilot of
Alexander's fleet, "avoit visité la Taprobane pendant un nouveau voyage
qu'il eut ordre de faire." If so, he was the first European on record
who had seen the island; but I have searched unsuccessfully for any
authority to sustain this statement of GOSSELIN.]
So vague and uncertain was the information thus obtained, that STRABO,
writing upwards of two centuries later, manifests irresolution in
stating that Taprobane was an island[1]; and POMPONIUS MELA, who wrote
early in the first century of the Christian era, quotes as probable the
conjecture of HIPPARCHUS, that it was not in reality an island, but the
commencement of a south-eastern continent[2]; an opinion which PLINY
records as an error that had prevailed previous to his own time, but
which he had been enabled to correct by the information received from
the ambassador who had been sent from Ceylon to the Emperor Claudius.[3]
[Footnote 1: STRABO, l. ii. c.i.s. 14, c.v.s. 14, [Greek: einai phasi
nêson]; l. xv. c.i.s. 14. OVID was more confident, and sung of--
". . . . Syene
Aut ubi Taprobanen Indica cingit aqua."
_Epst. ex Ponto_, l. 80]
[Footnote 2: "Taprobanen aut grandis admodum insula aut prima pars orbis
alterius Hipparcho dicitur."--P. MELA, iii. 7. "Dubitare poterant
juniores num revera insula esset quam illi pro veterum Taprobane
habebant, si nemo eousque repertus esset qui eam circumnavigasset: sic
enim de nostra quoque Brittania dubitatum est essetne insula antequam
illam circumnavigasset Agricola."--_Dissertatio de Ætate et Amtore
Peripli Maris Erythræi_; HUDSON, _Geographiæ Veter. Scrip. Grac. Min._.,
vol. i. p. 97.]
[Footnote 3: PLINY, 1. vi. c. 24.]
In the treatise _De Mundo_, which is ascribed to ARISTOTLE[1], Taprobane
is mentioned incidentally as of less size than Britain; and this is
probably the earliest historical notice of Ceylon that has come down to
us[2] as the memoirs of Alexander's Indian officers, on whose authority
Aristotle (if he be the author of the treatise "_De Mundo_") must have
written, survive only in fragments, preserved by the later historians
and geographers.
[Footnote 1: I have elsewhere disposed of the alleged allusions of
Sanchoniathon to an island which was obviously meant for Ceylon. (See
Note (A) end of this chapter.) The authenticity of the treatise _De
Mundo_, as a production of ARISTOTLE, is somewhat doubtful (SCHOELL,
_Literat. Grecque_, liv. iv. c. xl.); and it might add to the suspicion
of its being a modern composition, that Aristotle should do no more than
mention the name and size of a country of which Onesicritus and Nearchus
had just brought home accounts so surprising; and that he should speak
of it with confidence as an island; although the question of its
insularity remained somewhat uncertain at a much later period.]
[Footnote 2: Fabricius, in the supplemental volume of his _Codex
Pseudepigraphi veteris Testamenti,_ Hamb., A.D. 1723, says: "Samarita,
Genesis, viii. 4, tradit Noæ arcam requievisse super montem [Greek: tês]
Serendib sive Zeylan."--P. 30; and it was possibly upon this authority
that it has been stated in Kitto's _Cyclopoedia of Biblical Literature,_
vol. i. p. 199, as "a curious circumstance that in Genesis, viii. 4, the
Samaritan Pentateuch has Sarandib, the Arabic name of Ceylon," instead
of Ararat, as the resting place of the ark. Were this true, it would
give a triumph to speculation, and serve by a single but irresistible
proof to dissipate doubt, if there were any, as to the early intercourse
between the Hebrews and that island as the country from which Solomon
drew his triennial supplies of ivory, apes, and peacocks (1 Kings, x.
22). Assuming the correctness of the opinion that the Samaritan
Pentateuch is as old as the separation of the tribes in the reign of
Rehoboam, B. C. 975-958, this would not only furnish a notice of Ceylon
far anterior to any existing authority; but would assign an antiquity
irreconcilable with historical evidence as to its comparatively modern
name of "Serendib." The interest of the discovery would still be
extraordinary, even if the Samaritan Pentateuch be referred to the later
date assigned to it by Frankel, who adduces evidence to show that its
writer had made use of the Septuagint. The author of the article in the
_Biblical Cyclopoedia_ is however in error. Every copy of the Samaritan
Pentateuch, both those printed in the Paris _Polyglot_ and in that of
Walton, as well as the five MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford,
which contain the eighth chapter of Genesis, together with several
collations of the Hebrew and Samaritan text, make no mention of
Sarandib, but all exhibit the word "Ararat" in its proper place in the
eighth chapter of Genesis. "Ararat" is also found correctly in BLAYNET'S
_Pentat, Hebroeo-Samarit.,_ Oxford, 1790.
But there is another work in which "Sarandib" does appear in the verse
alluded to. PIETRO DELLA VALLE, in that most interesting letter in which
he describes the manner in which he obtained at Damascus, in A.D. 1616,
a manuscript of the Pentateuch on parchment in the Hebrew language, but
written in Samaritan characters; relates that along with it he procured
_another_ on paper, in which not only the letters, but the language, was
Samaritan--"che non solo è seritto con lettere Samaritane, ma in lingua
anche propria de' Samaritani, che è un misto della Ebraica e della
Caldea."--_Viaggi, &c.,_ Lett. da Aleppo, 15. di Giugno A.D. 1616.
The first of these two manuscripts is the Samaritan Pentateuch, the
second is the "_Samaritan version_" of it. The author and age of the
second are alike unknown; but it cannot, in the opinion of Frankel, date
earlier than the second century, or a still later period. (DAVISON'S
_Biblical Criticism,_ vol. i, ch. xv. p. 242.) Like all ancient targums,
it bears in some particulars the character of a paraphrase; and amongst
other departures from the literal text of the original Hebrew, the
translator, following the example of Onkelos and others, has substituted
modern geographical names for some of the more ancient, such as
_Gerizim_ for Mount Ebal (Deut. xxvii. 4), _Paneas_ for Dan, and
_Ascalon_ for Gerar; and in the 4th verse of the viiith chapter of
Genesis he has made the ark to rest "_upon the mountains of Sarandib._"
Onkelos in the same passage has _Kardu_ in place of Ararat. See WALTON'S
_Polyglot_, vol. i. p. 31; BASTOW, _Bibl. Dict._ 1847, vol. i. p. 71.
According to the _Mahawanso_, the epithet of Sihale-dwipa, the _island
of lions_, was conferred upon Ceylon by the followers of Wijayo, B.C.
543 (_Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 51), and from this was formed, by the
Arabian seamen, the names Silan-dip and Seran-dib. The occurrence of the
latter word, therefore, in the "Samaritan Pentateuch," if its antiquity
be referable to the reign of Rehoboam, would be inexplicable; whereas no
anachronism is involved by its appearance in the "Samaritan _version_,"
which was not written till many centuries after the Wijayan conquest.
There is another manuscript, written on bombycine, in the Bodleian
Library, No. 345, described as an Arabic version of the Pentateuch,
written between the years 884 and 885 of the Hejira, A.D. 1479 and 1480,
and ascribed to Aba Said, son of Abul Hassan, "in eo continetur versio
Arabica Pentateuchi quæ ex textu Hebræico-Samaritano _non ex versione
ilia quæ dialecto quadam peculieri Samaritanis quondam vernacula Scripta
est_."--_Cat. Orient. MSS._ vol. I. p. 2. In this manuscript, also, the
word _Sarendip_ instead of Ararat, occurs in the passage in Genesis
descriptive of the resting of the ark.]
From their compilations, however, it appears that the information
concerning Ceylon collected by the Macedonian explorers of India, was
both meagre and erroneous. ONESICRITUS, as he is quoted by Strabo and
Pliny, propagated exaggerated statements as to the dimensions of the
island[1] and the number of herbivorous cetacea[2] found in its seas;
the elephants he described as far surpassing those of continental India
both in courage and in size.[3]
[Footnote 1: These early errors as to the and position of Ceylon will be
found explained elsewhere. See Vol. I. P. 1. ch. i. p. 81.]
[Footnote 2: STRABO, xv. p. 691. The animal referred to by the
informants of Onesicritus was the dugong, whose form and attitudes gave
rise to the fabled mermaid. See Ælian, lib. xvi. ch. xviii., who says it
has the face of a woman and spines that resemble hair.]
[Footnote 3: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. 24.]
MEGASTHENES, twenty years after the death of Alexander the Great, was
accredited as an ambassador from Seleucus Nicator to the court of
Sandracottus, or Chandra-Gupta, the King of the Prasii, from whose
country Ceylon had been colonised two centuries before by the expedition
under Wijayo.[1] It was, perhaps, from the latter circumstance and the
communication subsequently maintained between the insular colony and the
mother country, that Megasthenes, who never visited any part of India
south of the Ganges, and who was, probably, the first European who ever
beheld that renowned river[1], was nevertheless enabled to collect many
particulars relative to the interior of Ceylon. He described it as being
divided by a river (the Mahawelli-ganga?) into two sections, one
infested by wild beasts and elephants, the other producing gold and
gems, and inhabited by a people whom he called Palæogoni[2], a
hellenized form of _Pali-Putra,_ "the sons of the Pali," the first
Prasian colonists.
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I. P. III. ch. iii. p. 336.]
[Footnote 2: ROBEBTSON'S _Ancient India,_ sec. ii.]
[Footnote 3: SCHWANBECK'S _Megasthenes, Fragm._ xviii.; SOLINUS
POLYHISTOR, lii. 3; PLINY, lvi. ch. 24. ÆLIAN, in compiling his _Natura
Animalium,_ has introduced the story told by MEGASTHENES, and quoted by
STRABO, of cetaceous animals in the seas of Ceylon with heads resembling
oxen and lions; and this justifies the conjecture that other portions of
the same work referring to the island may have been simultaneously
borrowed from the same source. SCHWANBECK, apparently on this ground,
has included among the _Fragmenta incerta_ those passages from ÆLIAN,
lib, xvi. ch. 17, 18, in which he says, and truly, that in Taprobane
there were no cities, but from five to seven hundred villages built of
wood, thatched with reeds, and occasionally covered with the shells of
large tortoises. The sea coast then as now was densely covered with
palm-trees (evidently coco-nut and Palmyra), and the forests contained
elephants so superior to those of India that they were shipped in large
vessels and sold to the King of Calinga (Northern Circars). The island,
he says, is so large that "those in the maritime districts never hunted
in the interior, and those in the interior had never seen the sea."]
Such was the scanty knowledge regarding India communicated to Europe by
those who had followed the footsteps of conquest into that remote
region; and although eighteen centuries elapsed from the death of
Alexander the Great before another European power sought to establish
its dominion in the East, a new passion had been early implanted, the
cultivation of which was in the highest degree favourable to the
acquisition and diffusion of geographical knowledge. In an age before
the birth of history[1], the adventurous Phoenicians, issuing from the
Red Sea, in their ships, had reached the shores of India, and centuries
afterwards their experienced seamen piloted the fleets of Solomon in
search of the luxuries of the East.[2]
[Footnote 1: A compendious account of the early trade between India and
the countries bordering on the Mediterranean will be found in
PARDESSUS's _Collection des Lois Maritimes antérieures au XVIII^e
siècle_, tom. i. p. 9.]
[Footnote 2: It has been conjectured, and not without reason, that it
may possibly have been from Ceylon and certainly from Southern India
that the fleets of Solomon were returning when "once in every three
years came the ships of Tarshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory, apes,
and peacocks."--_I Kings_, x. 22, _II Chron._, xx. 21. An exposition of
the reasons for believing that the site of Tarshish may be recognised in
the modern Point de Galle will be found in a subsequent chapter
descriptive of that ancient emporium. See also Note A at the end of this
chapter.]
Egypt, under the Ptolemies, became the seat of that opulent trade which
it had been the aim of Alexander the Great to divert to it from Syria.
Berenice was built on the Red Sea, as an emporium for the ships engaged
in Indian voyages, and Alexandria excelled Tyre in the magnitude and
success of her mercantile operations.
The conquest of Egypt by Augustus, so far from checking, served to
communicate a fresh impulse to the intercourse with India, whence all
that was costly and rare was collected in wanton profusion, to minister
to the luxury of Rome. A bold discovery of the same period imparted an
entirely new character to the navigation of the Indian Ocean. The
previous impediment to trade had been the necessity of carrying it on in
small vessels, that crept cautiously along the windings of the shore,
the crews being too ignorant and too timid to face the dangers of the
open sea. But the courage of an individual at length solved the
difficulty, and dissipated the alarm. Hippalus, a seaman in the reign of
Claudius, observing the steady prevalence of the monsoons[1], which blew
over the Indian Ocean alternately from east to west, dared to trust
himself to their influence, and departing from the coast of Arabia, he
stretched fearlessly across the unknown deep, and was carried by the
winds to Muziris, a port on the coast of Malabar, the modern Mangalore.
[Footnote 1: Arabic "_maussam_." I believe the root belongs to a dialect
of India, and signifies "seasons." VINCENT fixes the discovery of the
monsoons by Hippalus about the year A.D. 47, although it admits of no
doubt that the periodical prevalence of the winds must have been known
long before, if not partially taken advantage of by the seamen of Arabia
and India. _Periplus, &c._, vol. ii, pp. 24--57.]
An exploit so adventurous and so triumphant, rendered Hippalus the
Columbus of his age, and his countrymen, to perpetuate his renown,
called the winds which he had mastered by his name.[1] His discovery
gave a new direction to navigation, it altered the dimensions and build
of the ships frequenting those seas [2], and imparted so great an
impulse to trade, that within a very brief period it became a subject of
apprehension at Rome, lest the empire should be drained of its specie to
maintain the commerce with India. Silver to the value of nearly a
million and a half sterling, being annually required to pay for the
spices, gems, pearls, and silks, imported through Egypt.[3] An extensive
acquaintance was now acquired with the sea-coast of India, and the great
work of Pliny, compiled less than fifty years after the discovery of
Hippalus, serves to attest the additional knowledge regarding Ceylon
which had been collected during the interval.
[Footnote 1: _Periplus, &c._, HUDSON, p. 32; PLINY, lib. vi, ch. 26. A
learned disquisition on the discovery of the monsoons will be found in
VINCENT's _Commerce of the Ancients_, vol. i. pp. 47, 253; vol. ii. pp.
49; 467; ROBERTSON's _India_, sec. ii.]
[Footnote 2: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. 24.]
[Footnote 3: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. 26. The nature of this rich trade is
fully described by the author of the _Periplus of the Erythrean Sea_,
who was himself a merchant engaged in it.]
Pliny, writing in the first century, puts aside the fabulous tales
previously circulated concerning the island[1]; he gives due credit to
the truer accounts of Onesicritus and Megasthenes, and refers to the
later works of ERATOSTHENES and ARTEMIDORUS[2] the geographers, as to
its position, its dimensions, its cities, its natural productions, and
as to the ignorance of navigation exhibited by its inhabitants. All
this, he says, was recorded by former writers, but it had fallen to his
lot to collect information from natives of Ceylon who had visited Rome
during his own time under singular circumstances. A ship had been
despatched to the coast of Arabia to collect the Red Sea revenues, but
having been caught by the monsoon it was carried to Hippuros, the modern
Kudra-mali, in the north-west of Ceylon, near the pearl banks of Manaar.
Here the officer in command was courteously received by the king, who,
struck with admiration of the Romans and eager to form an alliance with
them, despatched an embassy to Italy, consisting of a Raja and suite of
three persons.[3]
[Footnote 1: I have not thought it necessary to advert to the romance of
JAMBULUS, the scene of which has been conjectured, but without any
justifiable grounds, to be laid in Ceylon; and which is strangely
incorporated with the authentic work of DIODORUS SICULUS, written in the
age of Augustus. DIODORUS professes to give it as an account of the
_recent discovery_ of an island to which it refers; a fact sufficiently
demonstrative of its inapplicability to Ceylon, the existence of which
had been known to the Greeks three hundred years before. It is the story
of a merchant made captive by pirates and carried to Æthiopia, where, in
compliance with a solemn rite, he and a companion were exposed in a
boat, which, after a voyage of four months, was wafted to one of the
Fortunate Islands, in the Southern Sea, where he resided seven years,
whence having been expelled, he made his way to Palibothra, on the
Ganges, and thence returned to Greece. In the pretended account of this
island given by JAMBULUS I cannot discover a single attribute sufficient
to identify it with Ceylon. On the contrary, the traits which he
narrates of the country and its inhabitants, when they are not manifest
inventions, are obviously borrowed from the descriptions of the
continent of India, given by CTESIAS and MEGASTHENES. PRINSEP, in his
learned analysis of the Sanchi Inscription, shows that what JAMBULUS
says of the alphabet of his island agrees minutely with the character
and symbols on the ancient Buddhist lats of Central India. _Journ.
Asiat. Soc. Ben._, vol. vi. p. 476. WILFORD, in his _Essay on the Sacred
Isles of the West, Asiat. Res._ x. 150, enumerates the statements of
JAMBULUS which might possibly apply to Sumatra, but certainly not to
Ceylon, an opinion in which he had been anticipated by RAMUSIO, vol. i.
p. 176. LASSEN, in his _Indische Alterthumskunde_, vol. iii. p. 270,
assigns his reasons for believing that Bali, to the east of Java, must
be the island in which JAMBULUS laid the scene of his adventures.
DIODORUS SICULUS, lib. ii. ch. lv., &c. An attempt has also been made to
establish an identity between Ceylon and the island of Panchoea, which
Diodoras describes in the Indian Sea, between Arabia and Gedrosia (lib.
v. 41, &c.); but the efforts of an otherwise ingenious writer have been
unsuccessful. See GROVER's _Voice from Stonehenge_, P. i. p. 95.]
[Footnote 2: PLINY, lib. xxii. ch. liii. iv. ch. xxiv. vii. ch. ii.]
[Footnote 3: "Legatos quatuor misit principe eoram Rachia."--PLINY, lib.
vi. c. 24. This passage is generally understood to indicate four
ambassadors, of whom the principal was one named Rachias. CASIE CHITTY,
in a learned paper on the early _History of Jaffna_, offers another
conjecture that "Rachia" may mean _Arachia_, a Singhalese designation of
rank which exists to the present day; and in support of his hypothesis
he instances the coincidence that "at a later period a similar
functionary was despatched by the King Bhuwaneka-Bahu VIII. as
ambassador to the court of Lisbon."--_Journal Ceylon Asiat. Soc.,_ p.
74, 1848. The event to which he refers is recorded in the _Rajavali_: it
is stated that the king of Cotta, about the year 1540, "caused a figure
of the prince his grandson to be made of gold, and sent the same under
the care of _Sallappoo Arachy_, to be delivered to the King of Portugal.
The Arachy having arrived and delivered the presents to the King of
Portugal, obtained the promise of great assistance," &c.--_Rajavali_, p.
286. See also VALENTYN, _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_, ch. vi.; TURNOUR'S
_Epitome_, p. 49; RIBEYRO'S _History_, trans, by Lee, ch. v. But as the
embassy sent to the Emperor Claudius would necessarily have been deputed
by one of the kings of the Wijayan dynasty, it is more than probable
that the rank of the envoy was Indian rather than Singhalese, and that
"Rachia" means _raja_ rather than _arachy_.
It may, however, be observed that Rackha is a name of some renown in
Singhalese annals. Rackha was the general whom Prakrama Bahu sent to
reduce the south of Ceylon when in arms in the 12th century
(_Mahawanso_, ch. lxxiii.); and it is also the name of one of the heroes
of the Paramas. WILFORD, _As. Res._, vol. ix. p. 41.]
The Singhalese king of whom this is recorded was probably
Chanda-Mukha-Siwa, who ascended the throne A.D. 44, and was deposed and
assassinated by his brother A.D. 52. He signalised his reign by the
construction of one of those gigantic tanks which still form the wonders
of the island.[1] From his envoys Pliny learned that Ceylon then
contained five hundred towns (or more properly villages), of which the
chief was Palæsimunda, the residence of the sovereign, with a population
of two hundred thousand souls.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 218; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 21;
AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS mentions another embassy which arrived from Ceylon
in the reign of the Emperor Julian, l. xx. c. 7, and which consequently
must have been despatched by the king Upa-tissa II. I have elsewhere
remarked, that it was in this century that the Singhalese appear to have
first commenced the practice of sending frequent embassies to distant
countries, and especially to China. (See chapter on the Knowledge of
Ceylon possessed by the Chinese.)]
They spoke of a lake called Megisba, of vast magnitude, and giving rise
to two rivers, one flowing by the capital and the other northwards,
towards the continent of India, which was most likely an exaggerated
account of some of the great tanks, possibly that of Tissaweva, in the
vicinity of Anarajapoora. They described the coral which abounds in the
Gulf of Manaar; and spoke of marble, with colours like the shell of the
tortoise; of pearls and precious stones; of the luxuriance of the soil,
the profusion of all fruits except that of the vine, the natural wealth
of the inhabitants, the mildness of the government, the absence of
vexatious laws, the happiness of the people, and the duration of life,
which was prolonged to more than one hundred years. They spoke of a
commerce with China, but it was evidently overland, by way of India and
Tartary, the country of the Seres being visible, they said, beyond the
Himalaya mountains.[1] The ambassadors described the mode of trading
among their own countrymen precisely as it is practised by the Veddahs
in Ceylon at the present day[2]; the parties to the barter being
concealed from each other, the one depositing the articles to be
exchanged in a given place, and the other, if they agree to the terms,
removing them unseen, and leaving behind what they give in return.
It is impossible to read this narrative of Pliny without being struck
with its fidelity to truth in many particulars; and even one passage, to
which exception has been taken as an imposture of the Singhalese envoys,
when they manifested surprise at the quarters in which the sun rose and
set in Italy, has been referred[3] to the peculiar system of the Hindus,
in whose maps north and south are left and right; but it may be
explained by the fact of the sun passing overhead in Ceylon, in his
transit to the northern solstice; instead of hanging about the south, as
in Italy, after acquiring some elevation above the horizon.
[Footnote 1: "Ultra montes Emodos Seras quoque ab ipsis aspici notos
etiam commercio."--PLINY, lib. vi. c. 24.]
[Footnote 2: See the chapter on the Veddahs, Vol. II. Part II. ch. iii.]
[Footnote 3: See WILFORD'S _Sacred Islands of the West, Asiat. Res_.,
vol. x. p. 41.]
The rapid progress of navigation and discovery in the Indian seas,
within the interval of sixty or seventy years which elapsed between the
death of Pliny and the compilation of the great work of Ptolemy is in no
instance more strikingly exhibited than on comparing the information
concerning Taprobane, which is given by the latter in his "System of
Geography,"[1] with the meagre knowledge of the island possessed by all
his predecessors. From his position at Alexandria and his opportunites
of intercourse with mariners returning from their distant voyages, he
enjoyed unusual facilities for ascertaining facts and distances, and in
proof of his singular diligence he was enabled to lay down in his map of
Ceylon the position of eight promontories upon its coast, the mouths of
five principal rivers, four bays, and harbours; and in the interior he
had ascertained that there were thirteen provincial divisions, and
nineteen towns, besides two emporiums on the coast; five great estuaries
which he terms lakes[2], two bays, and two chains of mountains, one of
them surrounding Adam's Peak, which he designates as Maloea--the name by
which the hills that environ it are known in the _Mahawanso_. He
mentions the recent change of the name to Salike (which Lassen
conjectures to be a seaman's corruption of the real name Sihala[3]); and
he notices, in passing, the fact that the natives wore their hair then
as they do at the present day, in such length and profusion as to give
them an appearance of effeminacy, "[Greek: mallois gynaikeiois eis hapan
anadedemenos]."[4]
[Footnote 1: PTOLEMY, _Geog_. lib. vii. c. 4, tab. xii, Asiæ. In one
important particular a recent author has done justice to the genius and
perseverance of Ptolemy, by demonstrating that although mistaken in
adopting some of the fallacious statements of his predecessors, he has
availed himself of better data by which to fix the position of Ceylon;
so that the western coast in the Ptolemaic map coincides with the modern
Ceylon in the vicinity of Colombo. Mr. COOLEY, in his learned work on
_Claudius Ptolemy and the Nile_, Lond. 1854, has successfully shown that
whilst forced to accept those popular statements which he had no
authentic data to check, Ptolemy conscientiously availed himself of the
best materials at his command, and endeavoured to fix his distances by
means of the reports of the Greek seamen who frequented the coasts which
he described, constructing his maps by means of their itineraries and
the journals of trading voyages. But a fundamental error pervades all
his calculations, inasmuch as he assumed that there were but 500 stadia
(about fifty geographical miles) instead of sixty miles to a degree of a
great circle of the earth; thus curtailing the globe of one sixth of its
circumference. Once apprised of this mistake, and reckoning Ptolemy's
longitudes and latitudes from Alexandria, and reducing them to degrees
of 600 stadia, his positions may be laid down on a more correct
graduation; otherwise "his Taprobane, magnified far beyond its true
dimensions, appears to extend two degrees below the equator, and to the
seventy-first meridian east of Alexandria (nearly twenty degrees too far
east), _whereas the prescribed reduction brings it westward and
northward till it covers the modern Ceylon_, the western coasts of both
coinciding at the very part near Colombo likely to have been visited by
shipping."--Pp. 47, 53, See also SCHOELL, _Hist, de la Lit. Grecque_, l.
v. c. lxx.
[Illustration]]
[Footnote 2: It is observable that Ptolemy in his list distinguishes
those indentations in the coast which he described as _bays_, [Greek:
kolpos], from the estuaries, to which he gives the epithet of "lakes,"
[Greek: limên]. Of the former he particularises two, the position of
which would nearly correspond with the Bay of Trincomalie and the
harbour of Colombo. Of the latter he enumerates five, and from their
position they seem to represent the peculiar estuaries formed by the
conjoint influence of the rivers and the current, and known by the Arabs
by the term of "_gobbs_." A description of them will be found at Vol. I.