Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History Part 99

[Greek:

"Metera Taprobanen Asiegeneon elephanton."]

DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES, v. 593.

Cosmas observes upon the smallness of their tusks compared with those of Africa, and mentions the strange fact, that ivory was then exported from Ethiopia to India, as well as to Persia and the countries of Europe. He makes other allusions to Ceylon, but the pa.s.sages extracted above, present the bulk of his information concerning the island.[1]

[Footnote 1: The above translation has been made from THEVENOT's version of Cosmas, which may differ slightly from that of MONTFAUCON, _Collect.

Nov. Patrum._ Paris, 1706, vol. ii. p.]

NOTE (A).

_Knowledge of Ceylon possessed by the Phoenicians._

In the previous chapter, p. 526, &c., allusion has been made to the possible resort of the Phoenicians to Ceylon in the course of their voyages to India, but I have not thought it expedient to embody in the text any notice of the description of the island which is given in the Phoenician History of SANCHONIATHON, published by Wagenfeld, at Bremen, in 1837, under the t.i.tle of "_Sanchuniathonis Historiarum Phoeniciae Libri Novem Groece Versos a Philone Byblio_, edidit Latinaque Versione donavit F. WAGENFELD."

Sanchoniathon is alleged to have lived before the Trojan war; and in Asiatic chronology he is said to have been a contemporary of Semiramis.

The Phoenician original perished; but its contents were preserved in the Greek translation of Philo, a native of Byblus, a frontier town of Phoenicia, who wrote in the first century after Christ, and till the alleged discovery of the MS. from which Wagenfeld professed to publish, the only portion of Philo's version known to exist consisted of fragments preserved by Eusebius and Porphyry. Wagenfeld's statement was, that the MS. in his possession had been obtained from the Portuguese monastery of St. Maria de Merinhao (the existence of which there is reason to doubt), and the portion which he first ventured to print appeared with a preface by Grotefend. Its genuineness was instantly impugned; a learned and protracted controversy arose; and though Wagenfeld eventually published the whole of the Greek MS., with a Latin version by himself, he was never prevailed upon to exhibit the original parchments, alleging that he had been compelled to restore them to the convent. The a.s.sailants of Wagenfeld accuse him of wilful deception; but the probability is that the doc.u.ment which he translated is one of those inventions of the Middle Ages, in which history and geography were strangely confounded with imagination and romance; and that it is an attempt to restore the lost books of Philo Byblius, as Philo himself is more than suspected to have invented the history which he professed to have translated from Sanchoniathon. (See ERSCH _and_ GRuBER'S _Encyclopaedia_, 1847; MoVER'S _Phoenician History_, vol. i. p. 117.)

[336. In point of time, the notice of Ceylon given by the Armenian Archbishop Moses of Ch.o.r.ene in his _Historia Armeniaca et Epitome Geographiae_, is ent.i.tled to precede that of Cosmos Indico-pleustes, inasmuch as Moses has translated into Armenian the Greek text of Pappus of Alexandria, who wrote about the end of the fourth century. Of Taprobane he says--it is one of the largest islands in the world, being 1100 miles in length by 1500 broad, and reckons 1370 adjacent islands amongst its dependencies. He alludes to its mountains and rivers, the variety of races which inhabit it, and its production of gold, silver, gems, spices, elephants, and tigers; and dwells on the fact, previously noticed by Agathemerus, that the men of this country dress their hair after the fas.h.i.+on of women, by braiding it in tresses on the top of their heads, "viri regionis istius capillis muliebribus sua capita redimiunt."--MOSES Ch.o.r.eNENSIS, &c., edit. Whiston, 1736, p. 367. The most remarkable circ.u.mstance is that he alludes thus early to the footprint on Adam's Peak, which is probably the meaning of his expression, "_ibidem Satanae lapsum narrant_," t. iv.]

In books vii. and viii, Sanchoniathon gives an account of an island in the Indian seas explored by Tyrian navigators, the description of which is evidently copied from the early Greek writers who had visited Taprobane, and the name which is a.s.signed to it, "_the Island of Rachius_", is borrowed from Pliny. The period of their visit is fixed by Sanchoniathon shortly after the conquest of Cittium, in Cyprus, by the Phoenicians; an event which occurred when Hiram reigned at Tyre, and Solomon at Jerusalem. The narrative is given as follows (book vii. ch.

v. p. 150): "So Bartophas died the next day, having exercised imperial authority for six years." (Ch. v.) "And on his death they chose Joramus, the son of Bartophas, king, whom the Tyrians styled Hierbas, and who reigned fifty-seven years. He having collected seventy-nine long s.h.i.+ps, sent an expedition against Cittium." ... (Ch. vi.) "At this time, Obdalius, king of the island of Mylite, sent all his forces to a.s.sist the Tyrians at Cittium; and when it came to the knowledge of the barbarians who inhabited Tenga, that the island was denuded of men and s.h.i.+ps, they invaded it under the command of Plusiacon, the son-in-law of Obdalius, and having slain him and many of his people, they plundered the country, and gave the city to the flames." (Ch. vii.) "And Joramus directed all the eparchs in the cities and islands to make out and send to Tyre descriptions of the inhabitants, their s.h.i.+ps, their arms, their horses, their scythe-bearing chariots, and their property of all kinds; and he ordered them to send to distant countries persons competent to draw up narratives of the same kind, and to record them all in a book.

In this manner he obtained accurate geographical descriptions of all the regions to the east and the west, both islands and inland parts. But the aethiopians[1] represented to the king that to the south there were great and renowned countries, densely populated, and rich in precious things, _gold_ and _silver_, pearls, gems, ebony, pepper, elephants, _monkeys_, parrots, _peac.o.c.ks_, and innumerable other things; and that there was a peninsula so far to the east that the inhabitants could see the sun rising out of the sea." (Ch. viii.) "Joramus then sent messengers to Natambalus, the king of the Babylonians, who were to say to him, 'I have heard that the countries of the aethiopians are numerous, and abounding in inhabitants; they are easy of access from Babylon, but very difficult from Tyre. If, therefore, I should determine to explore them, and you will let my subjects have suitable s.h.i.+ps, you shall have in return a hundred purple cloaks.' Natambalus was willing to do so; but the aethiopian merchants, who resorted to Babylon, vowed that they would take their departure if he should a.s.sist Joramus to sail to aethiopia." (Chap.

ix.) "Subsequently Joramus addressed himself to Irenius of Judea, and undertook that if he would let the Tyrians have a harbour on the sea towards aethiopia, he would a.s.sist him in the building of a palace, in which he was then engaged; and bind himself to supply him with materials of cedar and fir, and squared stones. Irenius a.s.senting, made over to Joramus the city and harbour of Ilotha. There were a great many date trees there, but as their timber was not suitable for constructing vessels, Joramus despatched eight thousand camels to Ilotha, loaded with materials for s.h.i.+p-building, and ordered the s.h.i.+pwrights to build ten s.h.i.+ps, and he appointed Cedarus and Jaminus and Cotilus, commanders....

They sailed from Ilotha; but furious tempests prevented them from pa.s.sing the straits.[2] And while they were wind-bound, they remained five months in a certain island, and having sowed wheat on the low ground, they reaped an abundant crop. After this they sailed towards the rising sun, and leaving the land of the Arabians they fell in with Babylonian s.h.i.+ps returning from aethiopia.[3] And on the following day they arrived at the country of the aethiopians, which they perceived sandy and devoid of water on the coast, but mountainous inland. They then sailed eastward along the sh.o.r.e for ten days. There an immense region extends to the south, and the aethiopians dwell in numerous populous and well-circ.u.mstanced cities, and navigate the sea. Their s.h.i.+ps are not suited for war, and have no sails. And having sailed thirty-six days to the southward, the Tyrians arrived at the island of Rachius ([Greek: Rhachiou neson])."

[Footnote 1: The aethiopians alluded to were a company of Indian jugglers and snake-charmers, whose arrival from Babylon is mentioned lib. vii.

ch. i.]

[Footnote 2: Of Bab-el-mandeb.]

[Footnote 3: India.]

(Ch. 9.) "The roadstead was in front of a level strand, bordered with lofty trees, and coming on to blow at night, they were in the utmost danger till sunrise: but running then to the south, they came in sight of a safe harbour[1]; and saw many populous towns inland. On landing, they were surrounded by the villagers, and the governor of the place entertained them hospitably for seven days; pending the return of a messenger whom he had despatched to the princ.i.p.al king, to ask his instructions relative to the Tyrians who had anch.o.r.ed in the harbour.

The messenger having returned on the seventh day, the governor sent for the Tyrians the following morning, and informed them that they must go with him to the king, who was then residing at Rochapatta, a large and prosperous city in the centre of the island. In front marched several spearmen, sent by the king as a guard of honour to the strangers; who with the clash of their spears scared away the elephants which were numerous and dangerous because it was their rutting time. The Tyrians marched in the centre, and Cedarus, Cotilus, and Jaminus were carried in palanquins. The villagers as they pa.s.sed along offered them presents, and the governor brought up the rear, where he rode on an elephant, surrounded by his body guard. In this order of march, they on the third day came to a ford; in the pa.s.sage over which, one of the travellers was devoured by crocodiles which swarm in the rivers. Having proceeded thus for several days, they at length descried the city of Rochapatta, environed by lofty mountains. And when it was known that they had arrived (for the rumour of their approach had preceded them) the inhabitants rushed from the city in a body to see the Tyrians; some riding on elephants, some on a.s.ses, some in palanquins, but the greater part on foot. And the commander having conducted them into a s.p.a.cious and splendid palace, caused the gates to be closed, that the crowd might not make their way in; and led the Tyrians to the King Rachius, who was seated on a beautiful couch. Presents were then interchanged.

"To the Tyrians, who brought horses and purple robes, and seats of cedar, the King gave in return, pearls, gold, 2000 elephants' teeth, and much unequalled cinnamon ([Greek: kinnamo pollo te kai diapheronti]); and he entertained them as guests for thirty days." (Ch. xi.) "Some of the Tyrians perished in the island, one indeed by sickness, but the others smitten by the G.o.ds. One man, picking up some pellets of sheep's dung, drew lines on the sand, and challenged another who happened to be looking on, to play a game with them. The challenger held the sheep's dung, but the other, who could not find any dung of camels (for there are no camels in that island), took cow-dung, of which there was a great quant.i.ty, and rolling up little b.a.l.l.s of it, placed them on the lines.

But a priest who was present warned them to desist, because cow-dung is sacred among them, but they only laughed. So the priest pa.s.sed on, and they continued their game, but shortly after, both fell down and expired, to the consternation of the bystanders. One of those who died was a native of Jerusalem." (Ch. xii.) "The sea encircles this great island of Rachius on every side, except that to the north and west there is _an isthmus which affords a pa.s.sage to the opposite coast_. Baaut constructed this place by heaping up mud, and her footprint is still to be seen in the mountain ([Greek: es kai ichnos estin en tois orois]).

[Footnote 1: Galle?]

"And the great king traced his descent from her race. The island is six days' journey in breadth, and twelve days' journey in length. It is populous and delightful. Its natural productions are magnificent, and the sea furnishes fish of the finest flavour, and in the greatest abundance, to the inhabitants of the coast. Wild beasts are numerous in the mountains, of which elephants are the largest of all. There is also the most fragrant of ca.s.sia ([Greek: kasia de he aromatikotate]).

"They find stones containing gold in the rivers, and pearls on the sea-sh.o.r.e. Four kings govern the island, all subordinate to the paramount sovereign, to whom they pay as tribute, ca.s.sia, ivory, gems, and pearls; for the king has gold in the greatest abundance. The first of these kings reigns in the south, where there are herds of elephants, of which great numbers are captured of surprising size. In this region the sh.o.r.e is inhospitable, and dest.i.tute of inhabitants, but the city, in which the governor resides, lies inland, and is said to be large and flouris.h.i.+ng. The second king governs the western regions which produce cinnamon ([Greek: ton pros esperan tetrammenon ton kinnamomophoron]); and it was there the Tyrian s.h.i.+ps cast anchor. The third rules the region towards the north, which produces pearls. He has made a great rampart on the isthmus to control the pa.s.sage of the barbarians from the opposite coast; for they used to make incursions in great numbers, and destroyed all the houses, temples, and plantations they could reach, and slew such men as were near, or could not flee to the mountains. The fourth king governs the region to the east, producing the richest gems in surprising profusion; the ruby, the sapphire, and diamond. All these, being the brothers of the great king in Rochapatta, are appointed to rule over these places, and he who is the eldest of the brothers has the supreme power, and is called the chief and mighty ruler. He has a thousand black elephants, and five light-coloured ones. The black are abundant, but the fair-coloured are rare, and found nowhere except in this island, and the black ones do homage to them. Having captured such a one, they bring him to the king in Rochapatta, whose peculiar prerogative it is to ride on a white elephant, this being unlawful for his subjects. There are many fierce crocodiles in the rivers, and they are killed by crowds of men who rush with shouts into the water, armed with sharp stakes. And ten days after they arrived in Rochapatta, many Tyrians joined Rachius in hunting crocodiles." (Ch. xii.) "When the s.h.i.+ps returned to Tyre, Joramus gave orders to erect a pillar at the temple of Melicarthus, and to engrave on it an account of all that had taken place. This pillar was thrown down in the earthquake of last year, but it was not broken, so that the narrative can even now be seen."

BOOK VIII.

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

(Ch. ii.) "Hierbas, the son of Bartophas, and king of the Tyrians, thus addressed Joramus, the priest of Madynus, at the time when figs were first ripe: 'Taking a book and pen, describe all the cities and islands and colonies and the countries of the barbarians, and the forces of them all, and their s.h.i.+ps of war and of burthen, and their scythe-armed chariots. For when our s.h.i.+ps 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 aethiopians. The city of the Babylonians is flouris.h.i.+ng and populous; Media produces white horses; aethiopia is barren and arid near the sea, and mountainous in the interior. And further to the east is the peninsula of Rachius, whither the s.h.i.+ps of Hierbas sailed."

On this narrative of Sanchoniathon it is only necessary to remark that the allusion in ch. ix. to the a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.sage 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 aelanitic Gulf of the Red Sea, Ib. v. 26, whence they piloted the s.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.sages 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 s.h.i.+ps sailing past it, kept at a distance from its sh.o.r.es; 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 Muns.h.i.+ 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 Ba.s.sora 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 s.h.i.+ps 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, _Memoire 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.