Chap. II.] INDIAN, ARABIAN, PERSIAN AUTHORITIES. 595 



resorting to the island. The envoys stated, at Eome, 

 that the habit of tlie people of their country was, on 

 the arrival of traders, to go to "the fm'ther side of some 

 river where wares and commodities are laid down by 

 the strangers, and if the natives list to make exchange, 

 they have them taken away, and leave other mer- 

 chandise in heu thereof, to content the foreign mer- 

 chant." ^ 



The fact, thus established, of the aversion to com- 

 merce, immemorially evinced by the southern Singhalese, 

 and of their desire to escape from intercourse with the 

 strangers resorting to trade on thek coasts, serves to 

 explain the singular scantiness of information regarding 

 the interior of the island which is apparent in the 

 writings of the Arabians and Persians, between the 

 eighth and thirteenth centuries. Their knowledge of 

 the coast was extensive, they were famihar with the 

 lofty mountain which served as its landmark, they dwell 

 with admiration on its productions, and record with 

 particularity the objects of commerce which were to be 

 found in the island ; but, regarding the Singhalese them- 

 selves and their social and intellectual condition, little, if 

 any, real information is to be gleaned fi'om the Oriental 

 geographers of the middle ages. 



Albateny and Massoudi, the earhest of the Arabian 

 geographers^, were contemporaries of Abou-zeyd, in the 

 ninth century, and neither adds much to the description 



^ Pliny, Nat. Hid., lib. vi. cli. j of India, of these German featnres ; 

 ■ xxiv. Transl, Pliilenion Holland, I but uothiug- is yet known with cer- 

 p. 130. This passage has been some- | taiuty of the tribe to which they 

 times supposed to refer to the Sene, ' properly belonged." — Hist. Inland 



but a reference to the text will con- 

 firm the opinion of M aetiantjs and 

 SoLlNTis, that Pliny applies it to the 

 Singhalese; and that the allusion to 



mid Maritime Discovery, vol. i. p. 71. 

 ^ Probably the earliest allusion to 

 Ceylon by any Arabian or Persian 

 author, is that of Tabari, who was 



red hair and grey eyes, " rutilis j born in A.D. 838 ; but he limits his 

 corais" and " caji'uleis oculis " applies j notices to an exaggerated account of 

 to some northern tribes whom the [ Adam's Peak, " than which the 

 Singhalese had seen in their over- j whole world does not contain a 

 land journeys to China. " Later j mountain of greater height." — OusE- 

 travellers," says Cooley, '' have like- ! ley's Travels, vol. i. p. 34, «. 

 wise had glimpses, on the frontiers I 



