560 



MEDIAEVAL HISTOKY. 



[PART V. 



two bays, and two chains of mountains, one of them 

 surrounding Adam's Peak, which he designates as Ma- 

 laea the name by which the hills that environ it are 

 designated in the Mahawanso. He mentions the recent. 

 change of the name to Salike (which Lassen conjectures 

 to be a seaman's corruption of the real name Sihala x ) ; 

 and he notices, in passing, the fact that the natives 

 wore their hair then as they do at the present day, in 

 such length and profusion as to give them an appear- 

 ance of effeminacy, " ( .aXXo?^ yvva.ix=ioi$ sl$ OLTTOLV ava- 



as bays, KoXn-oc, from the estuaries, 

 to which he gives the epithet of 

 " lakes," \tfifjv. Of the former he 

 particularises two, the position of 

 which would nearly correspond with 

 the Bay of Trincomalie and the har- 

 bour of Colombo. Of the latter he 

 enumerates five, and from their posi- 

 tion they seem to represent the pecu- 

 liar estuaries formed by the conjoint 

 influence of the rivers and the cur- 

 rent, and known by the Arabs by 

 the term of"gobbs." A description of 

 them will be found at Vol. I. Part I. 

 ch. i. p. 43. 



1 May it not have an Egyptian 

 origin "Siela-Keh," the land of 

 SOaf 



2 The description of Taprobane 

 given by Ptolemy proves that the 

 island had been thoroughly circum- 

 navigated and examined by the ma- 

 riners who were his informants. Not 

 having penetrated the interior to any 

 extent, their reports relative to it are 

 confined to the names of the prin- 

 cipal tribes inhabiting the several 

 divisions and provinces, and the po- 

 sition of the metropolis and seat of 

 government. But respecting the 

 coast, their notes were evidently mi- 

 nute and generally accurate, and 

 from them Ptolemy was enabled to 

 enumerate in succession the bays, 

 rivers, and harbours, together with 

 the headlands and cities on the sea- 

 borde in consecutive order ; beginning 

 at the northern extremity, proceed- 

 ing southward down the western 

 coast, and returning along the east 



to Point Pedro. Although the ma- 

 jority of the names which he sup- 

 plies are no longer susceptible of 

 identification on the modern map, 

 some of them can he traced with- 

 out difficulty thus his Ganges is 

 still the Mahawelli-ganga ; his Ma- 

 agrammum would appear, on a 

 first glance, to he Mahagam, hut as 

 he calls it the " metropolis," and 

 places it beside the great river, it is 



j evidently Bintenne, whose ancient 

 name was " Maha-yangana" or " Ma- 

 ha-welli-gam." His Anurogrammum, 

 which he calls (3ani\tiov, " the royal 

 residence," is obviously Anaraja- 

 poora, the city founded by Anuradha 



j five hundred years before Ptolemy 

 was bom (fifahaivanso, ch. vii. p. 50 ; 

 x. 65, &c.). It may have borne in 

 his time the secondary rank of a vil- 

 lage or a town (gam or gramma), and 

 afterwards acquired the higher epi- 

 thet of Anuradha-poora, the " city " 

 of Anuradha, after it had grown to 

 the dimensions of a capital. The 

 province of the Modutti in Ptolemy's 

 list has a close resemblance in name, 

 though not in position, to Mantotte ; 

 the people of Rayagain Corle still 

 occupy the country assigned by him 

 to the Rhogandani his Naga dibii 

 are identical with the Nagadiva of 

 the Mahawanso ; and the islet to 

 which he has given the name of 

 Sassa, occupies nearly the position 

 of the Basses, which it has been the 

 custom to believe were so called by 

 the Portuguese " Baxos _" or " Bai- 

 xos," sunken rocks. It is curious 



