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



601 



The first authentic notice wliieh we liave of Singhalese 

 cinnamon occurs in the voyages of Ibn Batuta the Moor, 



with tlie ti-avellers and geogTaphers 

 of the aucieuts, iguore its Singhalese 

 origin, and unite with them in trac- 

 ing it to the country of the Trog- 

 lodytae. I attach no importance to 

 those passages in Wagenfeld's ver- 

 sion of ScmchoniatJum, in whicli, 

 amongst other particuhirs, obviously 

 describing Ceylon imder the name 

 of" the island of llachius/' which he 

 states to have been visited by the 

 Phoiuicians ; he says, that the western 

 province produced the finest cinna- 

 mon (^KlVVafiif) TToWtjj Tt Kal ClCUt'lpOl/Tl), 



that the mountains aboimded in 

 cassia {Kimia upu>n((TiKWTur7i), and that 

 the minor kings paid their tribute in 

 both, to the paramoimt sovereig-n. 

 (Sanchoniathox, ed. Wagenfeld, 

 Bremen, 18.37, lib. vii. ch. xii.). The 

 MS. from which Wagenfeld prmted, 

 is evidently a mediasval forgery (see 

 note (A) to vol. i. ch. v. p. 547). Again, 

 it is equally strange that the waiters 

 of Ai-abia and Persia preseiwe a si- 

 milar silence as to the cinnamon of 

 the ishuid, although they dwell with 

 due admiration on its other pro- 

 ductions, in all of which they carried 

 on a lucrative trade. Sir \\'illiak 

 OusELEY, after a fruitless search 

 through the writings of theu- geo- 

 graphers and travellers, records his 

 surprise at this result, and men- 

 tions especially his disappointment, 

 that Ferdousi, who enriches his great 

 poem with glowing descriptions of 

 all the objects presented by sm-- 

 roimding nations to the sovereigns 

 of Persia, — ivory, ambergTis, and 

 aloes, vases, bracelets, and jewels, — 

 neA'er once adverts to the exquisite 

 cinnamon of Ceylon. — Travels, vol. i. 

 p. 41. 



The conclusion deducible from 

 fifteen centmies of historic testi- 

 mony is, that the earliest knowledge 

 of cinnamon possessed by the western 

 nations was derived from China, and 

 that it first reached Judea and PhcB- 

 nicia overland by way of Persia 

 (Song of Solomon, iv. 14 : Revela- 

 tion xviii. 13). At a later period 



when the Ai'abs, '' the merchants of 

 Sheba," competed for the trade of 

 Tp-e, and carried to her " the chief 

 of all spices" (Ezekiel xvii. 22), 

 their supplies were drawn from their 

 African possessions, and the cassia 

 of the Trog-lod^^-tic coast supplanted 

 the cinnamon of the tar East, and to 

 a great extent excluded it from the 

 market. The Greeks having at 

 length discovered the secret of the 

 Arabs, resorted to the same coim- 

 tries as their rivals in commerce, and 

 surpassing them in practical naviga- 

 tion and the construction of ships, 

 the Sabaeans were for some centuries 

 reduced to a state of mercantile 

 dependence and inferiority. In the 

 meantime the Roman Empire de- 

 clined ; the Persians under the Sassa- 

 nides engrossed the intercom-se with 

 the East, the trade of India now 

 flowed through the Persian Gulf, and 

 the ports of the Red Sea were de- 

 serted. " Thus the downfall, and it 

 may be the extinction, of the African 

 spice trade probably dates from the 

 close of the sixth centmy, and Malabar 

 succeeded at once to this branch of 

 commerce." — CooLEY, Eeyio Cin~ 

 namomifera, p. 14. Cooley sup- 

 poses that the Malabars may have 

 obtained from Ceylon the cinnamon 

 with which they supplied the Per- 

 sians ; as Ibn Batuta, in the fourteenth 

 centmy, saw cinnamon trees drifted 

 upon the shores of the island, whither 

 they had been carried by torrents 

 from the forests of the interior {Ihn 

 JBatida, ch. xx. p. 182). The fact of 

 theii" being found so is in itself sutR- 

 cient evidence, that dowai to that 

 time no active trade had been carried 

 on in the article ; and the earliest 

 travellers in the thirteenth and four- 

 teenth centuries, Maeco Polo, John 

 OF Hesse, Fea Jordaxtts and others, 

 whilst they allude to cinnamon as 

 one of tlie chief productions of Mahi- 

 bar, speak of Ceylon, notwithstand- 

 ing her wealth in jewels and pearls, 

 as if she were utterly destitute of any 

 spice of this kind. Nicola de Conti, 



VOL. I. 



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