586 



MEDIEVAL HISTOEY. 



[Part V. 



Ibn Wahab, his informant, appears to have looked back 

 with singular pleasure to the delightful voyages which 

 he had made through the remarkable still-Avater 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." ^ Here months were 

 consumed by the mariners, amidst flowers and over- 

 hanging woods, with the enjoyments of abundant food 

 and exhilaratin.'T: drauo;hts of ariack 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. 



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 Trin- 

 comalie to be the port which received and dismissed the 

 fleets of the East and West.^ 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 Trinco- 



Allali, wlio first taught the Malio- 

 metans the route by which pilgrims 

 might proceed from India to the 

 sacred footstep on Adam's Peak. 

 But besides tlie discrepancy of the 

 names, the Imaum died in the year 

 A. D. 953, and was interred at Shiraz, 

 where Ibn Batuta made a visit to his 

 tomb. {Travels, transh DEFEEMEEf^ 

 &c., tom. ii. p. 79^ 



Edkisi, 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 comi- 



cil of the king, four were Buddhists, 

 four Mussuhnans, four Christians, 

 and four Jews. — Gildemeistek, 

 Script. Arahi, S)'c., p. 53 j Edkisi, 1 

 dim. sec. 6. 



^ '' A(/hhah,''' Arab. For an ac- 

 count of those of Ceylon, see Vol. I. 

 Pt. I. ch. i. p. 42. The idea enter- 

 tained by the Arabs of these Gobbs, 

 will be found in a passage iToni 

 Albj'rouni, given by Reinaud, Frag- 

 mens Arabes, ^-c, 119, and Journ. 

 Asiat. vol. xlv. p. 261. See also 

 Edkisi, Geog., tom. i. p. 73. 



^ Decline and Fall, ch. xl. 



