(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.]