A. D. 42. 



149 



tained five hundred towns, was very opulent, and abounded with gold, 

 filver, and pearls ; a piece of intelligence, which, if it had been within 

 the reach of a Roman invafion, might have proved fatal to it. The na- 

 tion they belonged to ufed to trade with a neighbouring nation, whom 

 they called the Seres, without the ufe of fpeech, each party laying down 

 their wares, and making the exchange, when the quantities were adjuft- 

 ed to mutual fatisfadion *. They are alfo faid to have related many 

 things very wonderful, and fome abfolutely impoffible, if they were not 

 rather mifreprefented by the hearers or reporters. [Plin.L. vi, c. 22.] 

 It is worthy of remark, that all the writers of antiquity, and among 

 the reft Cofmas Indicopleuftes, who profefles to write chiefly from his 

 own knowlege, appear not to have known any thing of cinnamon be- 

 ing produced in that illand, though it is the moft remarkable and valu- 

 able of its produdions f . 



42 — We are not informed, that the embafly from Taprobane gave 

 birth to any commercial intercourfe between that ifland and the Ro- 

 man fubjeds in Egypt. But it feems very probable, that the involun- 

 tary drift of the cuftom-firmer's vefTel acrofs the Ocean led the way to 

 the important diicovery, or application, of the regular winds called the 

 monfoons, by the Greek navigators of Egypt, which took place very 

 foon, or more probably immediately, after the return of Plocamus's of- 

 ficer with the ambafllidors of Taprobane. The firft Grecian command- 

 er, who availed himfelf of the periodical regularity of the winds in the 

 Indian ocean, was Hippalus ; and he was therefor, according to the 



* The Seres arc generally fuppofed the anceftors 

 of the people now called by us the Chinefc. But 

 Pliny fays, that thefe Seres were in fight of the 

 country, from which the ambalTadors came, and he 

 appears even to infer that they were divided from 

 it only by a river. Moreover they are defcribed 

 as men of large ftaturc, with reddirfi hair and blue 

 eyes, and fpeaking a language unintelligible to tlie 

 people of Hippuros. Thefe charafterillics anfwer 

 to a Scythian or Gothic people. Quere, if a co- 

 lony of the Scythians, who occupied the banks of 

 the Indus, have made a fcltlemeiit on the ifland, 

 and if it was from them that it has received the 

 name of Seren-dib, the laft part of which differs 

 nothing from div, the ufual termination of the 

 names of iflands in that part of the Indian ocean. 

 It was alfo called Sclan-div, which, when divefttd 

 of the termination, is the modern name, by which 

 we call it. — China, fo far from being vifible in 

 Ceylon, as the country of the Seres was, is by 

 coalting navigatian at leall five thoufand miles from 

 it ; fo that it is rather improbable, that there was 

 any intercourfe at all between them iu tiiofe days. 

 Some learned men, however, on the ftrength of 

 this paffage of Pliny, and another in the 17th 



chapter of the fame book, have perfuaded them- 

 felves, that they have found the fame cautious or 

 jealous policy among them, which regulates the 

 conduft of their fuppofed defcendents, the Chi- 

 nefe, in their intercourle with the Europeans. But 

 the Seres of the tyth chapter are evidently a con- 

 tinental people ; though Pliny himfelf feems in fome 

 refpefts to confound them with the Seres men- 

 tioned in tlie defcription of Taprobane. 



f Quere, if the cinnamon has been imported In- 

 to and naturalized in Ceylon, as cloves were in 

 Amboyna. See Siavorinus's Voyages, V. ii, p. 330, 

 En^liJJ} tranjlation. 



L,inlchotcu [^yoyagcs, p. 112] names feveral 

 places in India producing cinnamon, but none equal 

 to that of Ceylon, which, he fays, is thrice the 

 value of any other. Since his time the Dutch are 

 faid to have extirpated the bell cinnamon in all 

 parts of India fubjeift to tlieir powtr, except Cey- 

 lon, that they might there enjoy a monopoly of it. 

 But fome alTert that the real genuine cinnamon 

 never grew iu any other part of the world than 

 Ceylon. See Boyd's embq^'y to Ceykn in the jdfia^ 

 lie Anr.ual rcgijlcr for 1799. 



