604 



MEDLEVAL HISTORY. 



[PART V. 



On his way to India, he visited, in Shiraz, the tomb of 

 the Imaum Abu Abd Allah, " who made known the 

 way from India to the mountain of Serendib." As this 

 saint died in the year of the Hejira 331, his story serves 

 to fix the origin of the Mahometan pilgrimages to Adam's 

 Peak, in the early part of the tenth century. When 

 steering for the coast of India, from the Maldives, Ibn 

 Batuta was carried by the south-west monsoon towards 

 the northern portion of Ceylon, which was then (A.D. 

 1347) in the hands of the Malabars, the Singhalese 

 sovereign having removed his capital southward to Gam- 

 pola. At this tune the Hindu chief of Jaffna was in 

 possession of a fleet in " which he occasionally transported 

 his troops against the Mahometans on other parts of the 

 coast ; " and the Singhalese chroniclers relate that the 

 Tamils had erected forts at Colombo, Negombo, and 

 Chilaw. 



Ibn Batuta was permitted to land at Battala (Put- 

 lam), and found the shore covered with " cinnamon 

 wood," which " the merchants of Malabar transported 

 without any other price than a few articles of clothing 

 given as presents to the king. This, he says, may be attri- 

 buted to the circumstance that it is brought down by the 

 mountain torrents, and left in great heaps upon the shore." 



This passage is interesting, though not devoid of ob- 

 scurity, for cinnamon is not now known to grow further 

 north than Chilaw, nor is there any river in the district 

 of Putlam which could bear the designation of a " mountain 

 torrent." Along the coast further south the cinnamon 

 district commences, and the current of the sea may possibly 

 have carried with it the uprooted laurels described in 

 the narrative. The whole passage, however, demonstrates 

 that at that time, at least, Ceylon had no organised trade 

 in the spice. 



mental in introducing cinnamon into 

 India and Ceylon. In India its 

 cultivation, probably from natural 

 causes, proved unsuccessful; but in 

 Ceylon the plant enjoyed that rare 



combination of soil, temperature, and 

 climate, which ultimately gave to its 

 qualities the highest possible develop- 

 ment. 



