CuAr. IT.] IXDIAX, ARABIAN, PERSIAN AUTHORITIES. 



G03 



twenty-eiglit years to a pilgrimage, tlie record of wliicli 

 lias entitled liim to rank amongst the most remarkable 

 travellers of any age or country. 



On his way to Intha, he visited, in Shu\az, the tomb of 

 the Lnamii Abu Abd Allah, " who made known the 

 way from India to the mountain of Serendib." As this 

 saint died in the year of the liejira 331, his story serves 

 to fix the origin of the Mahometan pilgrimages to Adam's 

 Peak, in the early part of the tenth century. When 

 steering for the coast of India, from the Maldives, Ibn 

 Batuta was carried by the south-west monsoon towards 

 the northern portion of Ceylon, which was then (a.d. 

 1347) in the hands of the Malabars, the Singhalese 

 sovereign having removed his capital southward to Gam- 

 pola. The Hindu chief of Jaffna was at this time in 

 possession of a fleet in " which he occasionally transported 



tion of a substance called " paspala- 

 wata^ of which cinnamon forms one 

 of the ingredients. Mr. de Alwis 

 has been equally unsuccessful, al- 

 though in the Sarastoccfe Niyardu, an 

 ancient Sanskrit Catalogue of Plants, 

 the true cinnamon is spoken of as 

 Sinhalam, a word which signifies 

 *' belonging to Ceylon" to distinguish 

 it from cassia, which is found in 

 Hindustan. The Maha-Mootlliar, as 

 the result of an investigation made 

 by him in communication with some 

 of the most erudite of the Buddhist 

 priesthood familiar with Pali and 

 Singhalese literatm-e, informs me 

 that whilst cinnamon is aUuded to in 

 several Sanskrit works on Medicine, 

 such aa that of Susruta, and thence 

 copied into Pali translations, its name 

 has been found only in Singhalese 

 works of comparatively modern date, 

 although it occiu-s in the ti-eatise on 

 Medicine and Sm'gery popularly 

 attributed to King IJujas llaja, a.d. 

 339. Lankagodde, a learned priest 

 of Galle, says that the word laicanga 

 in an ancient Pali vocabidary means 

 cinnamon, but I rather think this is 

 a mistake, for lawam/a or lavanga is 

 the Pali name for ** cloves," that for 

 ciimamon being lamayo. 



The question therefore remains in 

 considerable obscurity. It is diffi- 

 cidt to imderstand how an article so 

 precious coidd exist in the highest 

 perfection in Ceylon, at the period 

 when the island was the very focus 

 and centi'e of Eastern commerce, and 

 yet not become an object of interest 

 and an item of export. And although 

 it is spaiingly used in the Singhalese 

 cuisine, stiU looking at its many 

 religious uses for decoration and 

 incense, the silence of the ecclesias- 

 tical writers as to its existence is 

 not easily accounted for. 



The explanation may possibly be, 

 that cinnamon, like coft'ee, was origi- 

 nally a native of the east angle of 

 Africa ; and that the same Arabian 

 adventm-ers who carried coftee to Ye- 

 men, where it floiu'ishes to the present 

 day, may have been equally instru- 

 mental in introducing cinnamon into 

 India and Ceylon. In India its 

 cultivation, probably from natm-al 

 causes, proved unsuccessfid ; but in 

 Ceylon the plant enjoyed that rare 

 combination of soil, temperatm-e, and 

 climate, which idtimately gave to its 

 qualities the highest possible develop- 

 ment. 



