INTRODUCTION. XXXV11 



I have elsewhere recorded my obligations to Mr. 

 WYLIE, and to his colleague, Mr. LOCKHART of Shanghae, 

 for the materials of one of the most curious chapters of 

 my work, that which treats of the knowledge of Ceylon 

 possessed by the Chinese in the Middle Ages. This is 

 a field which, so far as I know, is untouched by any 

 previous writer on Ceylon. In the course of my in- 

 quiries, finding that Ceylon had been, from the remotest 

 times, the point at which the merchant fleets from the 

 Red Sea and the Persian Gulf met those from China 

 and the Oriental Archipelago (thus effecting an exchange 

 of merchandise between East and West) ; and discover- 

 ing that the Arabian and Persian voyagers, on their 

 return home, had brought back copious accounts of the 

 island, it occurred to me that the Chinese travellers 

 during the same period had in all probability been 

 equally observant and communicative, and that the 

 results of their experience might be found in Chinese 

 works of the Middle Ages. Acting on this conjecture, 

 I addressed myself to a Chinese gentleman, WANG TAO 

 CHUNG, who was then in England ; and he, on his return 

 to Shanghae, made known my wishes to Mr. WYLIE. 

 My anticipations were more than realised by Mr. WYLIE'S 

 researches. I received in due course, extracts from 

 upwards of twenty works by Chinese writers, between 

 the fifth and fifteenth centuries, and the curious and 

 interesting facts contained in them are embodied in the 

 chapter devoted to that particular subject. In addition 

 to these, the courtesy of M. STANISLAS JULIEN, the eminent 

 French Sinologue, has laid me under a similar obligation 

 for access to unpublished passages relative to Ceylon, 

 prepared for his translation of the great work of HIOUEN 



