Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History Part 100

[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 Arab.u.m_."--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 circ.u.mstance, 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 a 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 a Hadjadj des femmes musulmanes qui avaient recu le jour dans ses etats, et dont les peres, livres a la profession du commerce, etaient morts. Le prince esperuit par la gagner l'amitie de Hadjadj; mais le navire ou l'on avait embarque ces femmes fut attaque par une peuplade de race Meyd, des environs de Daybal, qui etait montoe sur des burques. Les Meyds enleverent le navire avec ce qu'il renfermait. Dans cette extremite, une de ces femmes de la tribu de Yarboua, s'ecria: 'Que n'es-tu la, oh Hadjadj!' Cette nouvelle etant parvenue a Hadjadj, il repondit: 'Me voila.' Aussitot il envoya un depute a Daher pour l'inviter a faire mettre ces femmes en liberte. Mais Daher repondit: 'Ce sont des pirates qui ont enleve ces femmes, et je n'ai aucune autorite sur les ravisseurs.' Alors Hadjadj engagea Obeyd Allah, fils de Nabhan, a faire une expedition 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, _Mem. sur l'Inde_, p. 180; _Relation des Voyages_, Disc. p. xli ABOULFEDA, _Introd_. vol. i. p. ccclx.x.xv.; 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 geographique, comme les autres sciences en general, notammement l'astronomie, commenca a se former chez les Arabes, dans la derniere moitie du viii^{e} siecle, et se fixa dans la premiere moitie du ix^{e}. On fit usage des itineraires traces par les chefs des armees conquerantes et des tableaux dresses par les gouveneurs de provinces; en meme temps on mit a la contribution les methodes propagees par les Indians, les Persans, et surtout les Grees; qui avaient apporte le plus de precision dans leurs operations."--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 a.s.sertions 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 cla.s.s 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 _Historiae 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 Graeci_ 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 inst.i.tutions, their productions, and their trade.

In ill.u.s.tration of this matter-of-fact character of the Arab topographers, the most familiar example is that known by the popular t.i.tle 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 Ba.s.sora 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 Ha.s.san, an amateur geographer, of Ba.s.sora (contemporary with Ma.s.soudi), 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 Bibliotheque imperiale 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 Siecle, &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 a.s.sociates 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 sh.e.l.ls, 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 Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, who along with the Singhalese "_Selendivi_" sent amba.s.sadors 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 ma.n.u.script, 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. x.x.xiii. p. 207; ch. x.x.xvii. 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 Manichaeans, and a community of Jews.[1]

[Footnote 1: It was to Ceylon that the terrified wors.h.i.+ppers 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. _Memoires 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 circ.u.mstance 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 p.r.o.nounces it to be written in Carmathic characters, and to commemorate an Arab who died A.D. 848. "Karmathacis quae dic.u.n.tur 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 s.h.i.+raz, where Ibn Batata made a visit to his tomb. (_Travels_, transl. DEFReMERY, &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 ill.u.s.trates 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 c.o.c.k-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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sages 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," p.r.o.nounces 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 s.h.i.+ps availing themselves of the monsoons to cross the Indian Ocean, crept along the sh.o.r.e to Cape Comorin; and pa.s.sed 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 entrepot 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 s.h.i.+ps of Arabia and India, rather than encounter the long delay of waiting for the change of the monsoon to effect the pa.s.sage, would prefer to "flock to the Straits of Manaar, and those which, from their size, could not pa.s.s the shallow water, would be unloaded, and their merchandise trans-s.h.i.+pped 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 s.h.i.+ps of the largest size called in the _Periplus_ [Greek: kolandiophonta], 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 compa.s.s[1], made bold pa.s.sages 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 compa.s.s probably possessed by the Chinese prior to the twelfth century, is discussed by KLAPROTH in his "_Lettre a M. le Baron Humboldt sur l'invention de la boussole_."

Paris, 1834.]

[Footnote 2: See the _"Katab-al-adjajab_," probably written by Ma.s.sOUDI.

REINAUD, _Memoires 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 a.s.sailants during the first and second siege of Constantinople in the seventh and eighth centuries? GIBBON says that the princ.i.p.al 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 s.h.i.+ps, it appears, were armed with some preparation of this nature in their voyages to Ba.s.sora?]

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 s.h.i.+ps 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, _Mahat.i.tta_ 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, Anaraj.a.poora, 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 pa.s.sage; 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 pa.s.sage, FA HIAN describes the large vessels in which the trade was carried between Tamlook, on the Hoogly, and Ceylon:--"A cette epoque, des marchands, se mettant en mer avec de grands vaisseaux, firent route vers le sud-ouest; et au commencement de l'hiver, le vent etant favorable, apres une navigation de quatorze nuits et d'autant de jours, on arriva au _Royaume des Lions_."--_Ibid_. chap. x.x.xvi. p. 328.]

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

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 51; ch. xxv. p. 155; ch. x.x.xv. p.