CiiAp. IV.] CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE MOORS. 



C31 



conjectures^ ; they were known there as traders centuries 

 before Mahomet Avas born, and such was then: passion 

 for enterprise, that at one and the same moment they 

 were pursuing commerce in the Indian Ocean ^, and 

 manning the gaUeys of Marc Antony in the fatal sea- 

 fight at Actium.^ The author of the Periplus found 

 them in Ceylon about the first Cliristian century, Cos- 

 mas Indico-pleustes in the sixth ; and they had become 

 so numerous in China in the eighth, as to cause a tumult 

 at Canton.^ From the tentli till the fifteenth century, 

 the Arabs, as merchants, were the undisputed masters 

 of the East ; they formed commercial establishments in 

 every country that had productions to export, and their 

 vessels sailed between every sea-port from Sofala to 

 Bab-el-Mandeb, and from Aden to Sumatra.'^ The 

 " Moors," who at the present day inhabit the coasts of 

 Ceylon, are the descendants of these active adventurers ; 

 they are not purely Aiixbs in blood, but descendants 

 from Ai'abian ancestors by intermarriage with the 

 native races who embraced the rehgion of the Prophet.^ 



^ MorNTSTTTAKT Elphinstone, on 

 the authority of Agatharchidos (as 

 quoted by Diodorus aud Photius)^ 

 says, that " fi-om all that appears in 

 that author, we should conclude that 

 two centuries before the Christian 

 era, the trade (between India and the 

 ports of Saba3a) was entirely in the 

 hands of the Arabs." — Hist. India, b. 

 ill. c. X. p. 167. 



2 Pliny, b. vi. c. 22. 



' " Omnis eo terrore /Egyptiis et Indi 



Omnes Arabes vertebant terga Sabasi.*' 



ViHGiL, ^)i. viii. 705. 



4 Abou-zetd, vol. i. p. xlii. cix. 



^ Vincent, vol. ii. p. 451. The 

 INIoors of Ceylon are identical in race 

 with 'Hhe Mopillees of tlie Malabar 

 coast." — M'Kenzie, Asiat, Rvs., vol. 

 vi. p. 430. 



•^ In a former worlc, " Christianitij 

 in Ceylon^'' I was led, by incon-ect 

 information, to describe a section of 

 the Moors as belonging to the sect of 

 the Shiahs, and using the Persian 



language in the service of their 

 mosques (c. i. note, p. 34). There is 

 reason to believe that at a former 

 period there were Mahometans in 

 Ceylon to whom this description would 

 apply; but at the present day the 

 Moors throughout the island are, I 

 believe, imiversally Sounees, belong- 

 ing to one of the fom- orthodox sects 

 called Shdfees, and using Arabic as 

 their ritual dialect. Their vemacidar 

 is Tamil, mixed with a number of 

 Arabic words ; aud all their religious 

 books, except the Koran, are in that 

 dialect. Casie Chitty, the erudite 

 District Judge of Chilaw, writes to 

 me that " the Moors of Ceylon be- 

 lieve themselves to be of the posterity 

 of Hashem; and, according to one 

 tradition, their progenitors were dri- 

 ven from Arabia by Mahomet himself, 

 as a punishment for their cowardice 

 at the battle of Ohod. But according 

 to anether version, tliey tied from the 

 tyranny of the Khalif Abu al Melek 



