538t Sir A. Johnstoi^s Letter relating to the preceding Inscription. 



persons whom I consulted, afforded me much curious information relative 

 to the manner in which the trade had been carried on by the Mohammedan 

 merchants on Ceylon, from the end of the ninth to the beginning of the 

 fifteenth century, and as that information may serve to fill up a portion of 

 the chasm which exists in the history of the trade of India between those 

 two periods, I shall avail myself of the present opportunity, while explain- 

 ing to you the circumstances by which I was led to the discovery of the 

 accompanying inscription, to submit to the Royal Asiatic Society a short 

 account of the state of the Mohammedans, and of their trade on Ceylon, 

 from the time of their earliest establishment on that island to the present 

 period. 



The first Mohammedans who settled on Ceylon were, according to the 

 tradition which prevails amongst their descendants, a portion of those Arabs 

 of the house of Hashim who were driven from Arabia in the early part of 

 the eighth century, by the tyranny of the Caliph Abd al Melek ben 

 Merwan, and who proceeding from the Euphrates southward made settle- 

 ments in the Concan, in the southern parts of the peninsula of India, on 

 the island of Ceylon and at Malacca. The division of them which came to 

 Ceylon formed eight considerable settlements along the north-east, north, and 

 western coasts of that island : viz. one at Trincomalee, one at Jaffiia, one at 

 Mantotte and Manar, one at Coodramalle, one at Putlam, one at Colombo, 

 one at Barbareen, and one at Point de Galle. The settlement at Manar 

 and Mantotte, on the north-west part of Ceylon, from its local situation with 

 respect to the peninsula of India, the two passages through Adam's bridge,* 

 and the chankt and pearlt fislieries on the coasts of Ceylon and Madura, 

 naturally became for the Mohammedans, what it had before been for the 

 ancient Hindu and Persian traders of India, the great emporium of all the 

 trade which was carried on by them with Egypt, Arabia, Persia, and 

 the coast of Malabar, on one side ; and the coast of Coromandel, tlie 

 eastern shores of the bay of Bengal, Malacca, Sumatra, Java, the Moluccas, 

 and China, on the other side. On this part of Ceylon, at an equal distance 

 from their respective countries, the silk merchants of China, who had col- 

 lected on their voyage aloes, cloves, nutmegs, and sandal-wood, maintained 

 a free and beneficial commerce with the inhabitants of the Arabian and 

 Persian Gulfs : it was, in fact, the place at which all the goods which came 



* See the accompanying Note (A). f See Note (B). % See Note (C). 



