550 



MEDIAEVAL HISTOEY. 



[PART V. 



by name till the companions of Alexander the Great, 

 returning from his Indian expedition, brought back 

 accounts of what they had been told of its elephants 

 and ivory, its tortoises and marine monsters. 1 



So vague and uncertain was the information thus 

 obtained, that STKABO, writing upwards of two cen- 

 turies later, manifests irresolution in stating that 

 Taprobane was an island 2 ; and POMPONIUS MELA, who 

 wrote early in the first century of the Christian era, 

 quotes as probable the conjecture of HIPPAECHUS, that 

 it was not in reality an island, but the commencement 

 of a south-eastern continent 3 ; an opinion which PLINY 

 records as an error that had prevailed previous to his 

 own time, but which he had been enabled to correct by 

 the information received from the ambassador who had 

 been sent from Ceylon to the Emperor Claudius. 4 



In the treatise De Mundo, which is ascribed to ARIS- 

 TOTLE 5 , Taprobane is mentioned incidentally as of less 

 size than Britain ; and this is probably the earliest his- 



those assigned to it in China, in 

 Siam, in Hindustan, Kashmir, Persia, 

 and other countries of the East. The 

 learned ingenuity of BOCHART ap- 

 plied a Hebrew root to expound the 

 origin of Taprobane (Geogr. Sac. lib. 

 ii. ch. xxviii.) ; but the later re- 

 searches of TTJRNOTJR, BTJRNOTIF, and 

 LASSEN have traced it with certainty 

 to its Pali and Sanskrit origin. 



1 GOSSELIN, in his Recherches sur 

 la Geographic dcs Andens, torn. iii. 

 p. 291, says that Onesicritus, the 

 pilot of Alexander's fleet, " avait 

 visite" la Taprobane pendant un 

 nouveau voyage qu'il eut ordre de 

 faire." If so, he was the first Euro- 

 pean on record who had seen the 

 island ; but I have searched unsuc- 

 cessfully for any authority to sustain 

 this statement of GOSSELIN. 



2 STRABO, 1. ii. c. i. s. 14, c. v. s. 14, 



tlvai 0a(7i vrjaov; 1. XV. C. i. 8. 14. OviD 



was more confident, and sung of 



" Syene 



Aut ubi Taprobanen Indica cingit aqua." 

 Epist. ex Ponto, i. 80. 



3 " Taprobanen aut grandis admo- 

 dum insula aut prima pars orbis al- 

 terius Hipparcho dicitur." POM- 

 PONIUS MELA, iii. 7. "Dubitare pote- 

 rant juniores num revera insula esset 

 quam illi pro vejieruni Taprobane 

 habebant, si nemo eousque repertus 

 esset qui earn circumnavigasset : sic 

 enim de nostra quoque Britannia dubi- 

 tatum est essetne insula antequam 

 illam circumnavigasset Agricola." 

 Dissertatio de^Etate et Auctore Peripli 

 Marts Erythrcei; HUDSON, Geoff. 

 Veter. Scrip. Grcec. Mm., vol. i. p. 97. 



4 PLINY, 1. vi. c. 24. 



5 I have elsewhere disposed of the 

 alleged allusions of Sanchoniathon to 

 an island which was obviously meant 

 for Ceylon. (See Note (A) end of 

 this chapter.) The authenticity of 

 the treatise De Mundo, as a pro- 

 duction of ARISTOTLE, is somewhat 

 doubtful (SCH<ELL, Liter at. Grecque, 

 liv. iv. c. xl.) ; and it might add to the 

 suspicion of its being a modem com- 

 position, that Aristotle should do 

 no more than mention the name and 



