450 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. 



[PART IV. 



CHAP. IV. 



MANUFACTURES. 



THE silk alluded to in the last chapter must have 

 been brought from China for re-exportation to the 

 West. Silk is frequently mentioned in the Mahawanso 1 9 

 but never with any suggestion as to its being a native 

 product of Ceylon. 



Coir and Cordage. EDRISI speaks of cordage made 

 from the fibre of the coco-nut, to prepare which, 

 the natives of Oman and Yemen resorted to Cey- 

 lon. 2 Hence the Singhalese would appear to have 

 been instructed by the Arabs in the treatment of coir, 

 and its formation into ropes ; an occupation which, at 

 the present day, affords extensive employment to the 

 inhabitants of the south and south-western coasts. 

 Ibn Batuta describes the use of coir, for sewing toge- 

 ther the planking of boats, as it was practised at Zafar 

 in the fourteenth century 3 ; and the word itself bespeaks 

 its Arabian origin, as ALBYROUNI, who divides the 

 Maldives and Laccadives into two classes, calls the 

 one group the Dyvah-kouzah, or islands that produce 

 cowries; and the other the Dyvah-kanbar, or islands 

 that produce coir. 4 ' 



Dress. The dress of the people was of the simplest 



1 Silk is mentioned 20 B.C. Raja- 

 ratnacari, p. 49. Mahawanso. ch. 

 xxiii. p. 139. 



2 EDKISI, t. i. p. 74. 



3 Voyages. 8,-c., vol. ii. p. 207. 

 Paris, 1854. 



4 ALBYBOTJNI, inREYNAUD, Fragm. 



Arabes, $c., pp. 93, 124. The Por- 

 tuguese adopted the word from the 

 Hindus, and CASTANEDA, in Hist, of 

 the Discovery of India, describes the 

 Moors of Sofalah sewing their boats 

 with " cayro" ch. v. 14, xxx. 75. 



