CHAP. II.] INDIAN, ARABIAN, PERSIAN AUTHORITIES. 



601 



The first authentic notice which we have of Singhalese 

 cinnamon occurs in the voyages of Ibn Batuta the Moor,. 



serpents. Pliny appears to have 

 been the first to suspect that the most 

 precious of spices carne not from 

 Arabia, but from ./Ethiopia (lib. xii. c. 

 xlii.) ; and COOLEY, in an argument 

 equally remarkable for ingenuity and 

 research, has succeeded in demon- 

 strating the soundness of this con- 

 jecture, and establishing the fact that 

 the cinnamon brought to Europe by 

 the Arabs, and afterwards by the 

 Greeks, came chiefly from the east- 

 ern angle of Africa, the tract around 

 Cape Gardafui, which is marked on 

 the ancient maps as the Regio Cin- 

 namomifera. (Journ. Roy. Geogr. 

 Society, 1849, vol. xix. p. 166.) 

 COOLEY has suggested in his learned 

 work on " Ptolemy and the Nile" that 

 the name Gardafui is a compound 

 of the Somali word yard, " a port," 

 and the Arabic afhaoni, a generic 

 term for aromata and spices. It 

 admits of no doubt that the cinna- 

 mon of Ceylon was unknown to com- 

 merce in "the sixth century of our 

 era ; although there is evidence of a 

 supply which, if not from China, was 

 probably earned in Chinese vessels 

 at a much earlier period, in the 

 Persian name dur chini, which means 

 " Chinese wood," and in the ordinary 

 word " cinn-amon," " Chinese amo- 

 mum," a generic name for aromatic 

 spices generally. (NEES VON ESEN- 

 BACH, lie Cinnamomo Dispittatio, p. 

 12.) Ptolemy, equally with Pliny, 

 placed the "Cinnamon Region "at the 

 north-eastern extremity of Africa, 

 now the country of the Somalis ; 

 and the author of the Periplus, mind- 

 ful of his object, in writing a guide- 

 book for merchant-seamen, particu- 

 larises cassia amongst the exports 

 of the same coast ; but although he 

 enumerates the productions of Cey- 

 lon, gems, pearls, ivorv, and tortoise- 

 shell, he is silent as to cinnamon. 

 Dioscorides and Galen, in common 

 with the travellers and geographers 

 of the ancients, ignore its Singhalese 

 origin, and unite with them in trac- 

 ing it to the country of the Trog- 



VOL. I. R 



lodytae. I attach no importance to 

 those passages in WAGENFELD'S ver- 

 sion of SancJuniiatJum, in which, 

 amongst other particulars, obviously 

 describing Ceylon under the name 

 of "the island of Rachius," (which he 

 states to have been visited by the 

 Phoenicians) he says, that the western 

 province produced the finest cinna- 

 mon (icivixt/iiip iroXXtjj Tf ica'i ^inr/fpoiTi), 



that the mountains abounded in 



cassia (ca<Ti<i ap(u/*ari)cuTar>;),'and that 



the minor kings paid their tribute in 

 both, to the paramount sovereign. 

 (SANCHONIATHON, ed. Wageufeld, 

 Bremen, 1837, lib. vii. ch. xii.). The 

 MS. from which Wagenfeld printed, 

 is evidently a mediaeval forgery (see 

 note (A) to vol. i. ch. v. p. 547). Again, 

 it is equally strange that the writers 

 of Arabia and Persia preserve a si- 

 milar silence as to the 'cinnamon of 

 the island, although they dwell with 

 due admiration on its other pro- 

 ductions, in all of which they carried 

 on a lucrative trade. Sir WILLIAM 

 OITSELEY, after a fruitless search 

 through the writings of their geo- 

 graphers and travellers, records his 

 surprise at this result, and men- 

 tions especially his disappointment, 

 that Ferdousi, who enriches his great 

 poem with glowing descriptions of 

 all the objects presented by sur- 

 rounding nations to the sovereigns of 

 Persia, ivory, ambergris, and aloes, 

 vases, bracelets, and jewels, never 

 once adverts to the exquisite cinna- 

 mon of Ceylon. Travels, vol. i. p. 41. 

 The conclusion deducible from 

 fifteen centuries of historic testi- 

 mony is, that the earliest knowledge 

 of cinnamon possessed by the western 

 nations was derived from China, and 

 that it first reached Judea and Phoe- 

 nicia overland by way of Persia 

 (Song of Solomon, iv. 14 : Revela- 

 tion xviii. 13). At a later period, 

 when the Arabs, '* the merchants of 

 Sheba," competed for the trade of 

 Tyre, and carried to her " the chief 

 of all spices" (Ezekiel xvii. 22), 

 their supplies were drawn from their 



II 



