636 



MEDLEVAL HISTORY. 



[PART V. 



calls the king Sender-naz, a name which may possibly be 

 identified with the Malay Chandrabami, who twice 

 invaded the island during the reign of Pandita Prak- 

 rarna-bahu III. 1 



He repeats the former exaggerated account as to the 

 dimensions of Ceylon; states that it was believed to 

 have been anciently larger still, and shows incidentaUy 

 that as early as the thirteenth century, the Arab sailors 

 possessed charts of the island which they used in navi- 

 gating the Indian seas. 2 Then, as now, the universal 

 costume of the Singhalese was the cotton "comboy," 

 worn only on the lower half of the body 3 , their 

 grains were sesamum and rice ; their food the latter with 

 milk and flesh-meat; and their drink coco-nut toddy, 

 which Marco calls "wine drawn from the trees." He 

 dwells with rapture on the gems and costly stones, and, 

 above all, on the great ruby, a span long, for which Kubla 

 Khan offered the value of a city. With singular truth he 

 says, " the people are averse to a military life, abject and 

 timid, and when they have occasion to employ soldiers, 

 they procure them from other countries in the vicinity 

 of the Mahometans." From this it would seem that six 

 hundred years ago, it was the practice in Ceylon, as it 

 is at the present day, to recruit the forces of the island 

 from the Malays. 



The next Venetian whose travels qualified him to 

 speak of Ceylon was the Minorite friar ODOKIC, of 

 Portenau in the Friuli 4 , who, setting out from the Black 

 Sea in 1318, traversed the Asian continent to China, 

 and returned to Italy after a journey of twelve years. 

 In Ceylon he was struck by the number of serpents, 



1 Pandita Prakrama Bahu III. 

 was also called Kalikalla Saahitya 

 Sargwajnya. TURNOUT'S Epitome, 

 p. 44. 



2 I have seen with the sailors of 

 the Maldives, who resort to Ceylon 



at the present day, charts evidently 

 copied from very ancient originals. 



3 See the drawing, page 613. 



4 Itinerarium Fratns ODORICI de 

 Foro Julii de Portu-Vahonis. 



