MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. 



[PART V. 



write and pronounce Galle Kaleh, in the same manner as 

 it is spelled in the travels of Ibn Batuta in the fourteenth 

 century. The identity, however, is established not 

 merely by similarity of sound, but by the concurrent 

 testimony of Cosmas and the Arabian geographers \ as 

 to the nature and extent of the intercourse between China 

 and Persia, statements which are intelligible if referred 

 to this particular point, but inapplicable to any other. 



Coupled with these considerations, the identity of 

 name is not without its significance. It was the habit 

 of the Singhalese to apply to a district the name of 

 the principal place within it ; thus Lanka, which in 

 the epic of the Hindus was originally the capital and 

 castle of Havana, was afterwards applied to the island 

 in general ; and according to the Mahawanso, Tam- 

 bapani, the point of the coast where Wijayo landed, 

 came to designate first the wooded country that sur- 

 rounded it, and eventually the whole area of Ceylon. 2 

 In the same manner Galla served to describe not only 

 the harbour of that name, but the district north and 

 east of it to the extent of 600 square miles, and De 

 Barros, De Couto, and Eibeyro, the chroniclers of the 

 Portuguese in Ceylon, record it as a tradition of the 

 island, that the inhabitants of that region had acquired 

 the name of the locality, and were formerly known as 

 "Gallas." 3 



Galle therefore, in the earlier ages, appears to have 

 occupied a position in relation to trade of equal if not 

 of greater importance than that which attaches to it at 

 the present day. It was the central emporium of a com- 

 merce which in turn enriched every country of Western 

 Asia, elevated the merchants of Tyre to the rank of 



1 DTTLATJEIEK, in the Journal 

 Asiatique for Sept. 1846, vol. xlix. 

 p. 209, has brought together the 

 authorities of Ahoulfeda, Kazwini, 

 and others, to show that Kalah must 

 be situated in Ceylon, and he has 

 combated the conjecture of M. Alfred 

 Maury that it may be identical with 



Kedah in the Malay Peninsula. 

 REINATJD, Relation, fyc. Disc., pp. 

 xli. Ixxxiv., Itdrod. ABOTJLFEDA, p. 

 ccxviii. 



2 Mahawanso, ch. vii. p. 50. 



3 A notice of this tribe will be 

 found in another place. See Vol. II. 

 Pt. vn. ch. ii. 



