632 



MEDIEVAL HISTOEY. 



[Part V. 



The Singhalese epithet of ^^ Marak-kala-minisu" or 

 "Mariners," describes at once theii' origin and occu- 

 pation ; but during the middle ages, when Ceylon was 

 the Tyre of Asia, these immigrant traders became 

 traders in all the products of the island, and the brokers 

 through whose hands they passed in exchange for the 

 wares of foreign countries. At no period were they 

 either manufactm^ers or producers in any department ; 

 their genius was purely commercial, and theu- attention 

 was exclusively devoted to buying and selling what had 

 been previously produced by the industry and ingenuity 

 of others. They were dealers in jewelry, connoisseurs 

 in gems, and collectors of pearls ; and whilst the con- 

 tented and apathetic Singhalese in the villages and forests 

 of the interior passed their hves in the cultivation of 

 their rice-lands, and sought no other excitement than 

 the pomp and ceremonial of their temples ; the busy and 

 ambitious Mahometans on the coast built their ware- 

 houses at the ports, crowded the harboiurs with their 

 shipping, and collected the wealth and luxmies of the 

 island, its precious stones, its dye-woods, its spices and 

 ivory, to be forwarded to China and the Persian Gulf. 



Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, found the 

 Moors in uncontested possession of this busy and lucra- 

 tive trade, and Barbosa, in his account of the island, A. D. 

 1519, says, that not only were they to be found in every 

 sea-port and city, conducting and monopohsing its com- 

 merce, but Moors from the coast of Malabar were con- 

 tinually arriving to swell their numbers, alhu'cd by the 

 facihties of commerce and the unrestrained freedom en- 



ben Merivan, in the early part of the 

 eighth century. Their first settle- 

 ment in India was formed at Kail- 

 patam, to the east of Cape Comorin, 

 whence that place is still regarded as 

 the < father-land of the Moors.' " 



Another of their traditions is, that 

 their first landing-place in Ceylon 

 was at Barberyn, south of Caltura, 

 in the 402nd year of the Ilejira, 



(a. d. 1024.) These legends would 

 seem, to refer to the anival of some 

 important section of the Moors, but 

 not to the first appearance of this 

 remarkable people in Ceylon. The 

 Ceylon Gazetteer, Cotta, 1834, p. 254, 

 contains a valuable paper by Casie 

 Chittyon 'Hhe Manners and Customs 

 of the Moors of Ceylon." 



