5G6 



MEDLEVAL HISTORY. 



[PART V. 



The fact, thus established, of the aversion to com- 

 merce, imrnemorially evinced by the southern Singhalese, 

 and of their desire to escape from intercourse with the 

 strangers resorting to trade on their coasts, serves to 

 explain the singular scantiness of information regarding 

 the interior of the island which is apparent in the 

 writings of the Arabians and Persians, between the 

 eighth and thirteenth centuries. Their knowledge of 

 the coast was extensive, they were familiar with the 

 lofty mountain which served as its landmark, they dwell 

 with admiration on its productions, and record with 

 particularity the objects of commerce which were to be 

 found in the island ; but, regarding the Singhalese them- 

 selves and their social and intellectual condition, little, if 

 any, real information is to be gleaned from the Oriental 

 geographers of the middle ages. 



ALBATEXY and MASSOUDI, the earliest of the Arabian 

 geographers 1 , were contemporaries of ABOU-ZEYD, in the 

 ninth century, and neither adds much to the description 

 of Ceylon, given in the narratives of " The two Mahome- 

 tans" The former assigns to the island the fabulous 

 dimensions ascribed to it by the Hindus, and only alludes 

 to the ruby and the sapphire 2 as being found in the rivers 

 that flow from its majestic mountains. MASSOUDI asserts 

 that he visited Ceylon 3 , and describes, from actual know- 

 ledge, the funeral ceremonies of a king, and the increma- 

 tion of his remains ; but as his statements are borrowed 

 almost verbatim from the account given by Soleyman 4 , 

 there is reason to believe that he merely copied from 



1 Probably the earliest allusion to 

 Ceylon by any Arabian or Persian 

 author, is that of TABARI, who was 

 bom in A.D. 838 ; but he limits his 

 notices to an exaggerated account of 

 Adam's Peak, " than which the 

 whole world does not contain a 

 mountain of greater height." OTTSE- 

 LEY'S Travels, vol. i. p. 34, n. 



2 " Le rubis rouge, et la pierre qui 



est couleur de ciel." ALBATENT, 

 quoted by Reinaud, Introd. ABOUL- 

 FEDA, p. ccclxxxv. 



8 MASSOFDI in Gildemeister, Script. 

 Arab. p. 154. Gildemeister discre- 

 dits the assertion of Massoudi, that 

 he had been in Ceylon. (Ib. p. 154, .) 

 He describes Kalah as an island 

 distinct from Serendib. 



4 ABOTJ-ZEYD, Relation, $c., p. 50. 



