642 



MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. 



[PART V. 



and gems brought fine cloths from Cambay, together 

 with saffron, coral, quicksilver, vermilion, and specie, and 

 above all silver, which was more in demand than all the 

 rest. 



Such is the sum of intelligence concerning Ceylon 

 recorded by the Genoese and Venetians during the 

 three centuries in which they were conversant with the 

 commerce of India. Their interest in the island had 

 been rendered paramount by the events of the" first 

 Crusades, but it was extinguished by the discovery of 

 the passage round the Cape of Good Hope. In the 

 period which intervened the word traveller may be said 

 to have been synonymous with merchant 1 , and when 

 the occupation of the latter was withdrawn, the adven- 

 tures of the other were suspended. The vessels of the 

 strangers, in a very few years after their first appear- 

 ance in the Indian seas, began to divert from its accus- 

 tomed channel the stream of commerce which for so 

 many ages had flowed in the direction of the Eed Sea 

 and the Persian Gulf; and the galleons of Portugal 

 superseded the caravans of Arabia and the argosies of 

 Venice. 



1 CAESAR FREDERIC opens the ac- 

 count of his wanderings in India, 

 A.D. 1563, as follows: "Having for 

 the space of eighteen years continu- 

 ally coasted and travelled in many 

 countries beyond the Indies, ivherein 

 I have had both yood and ill success 

 in my travels" &c. He may be re- 

 garded as the last of the merchant 

 voyagers of Venice. His book was 

 translated into English almost simul- 

 taneously with its appearance in 

 Italian, under the title of " The 

 Voyayes and Travaile of M. Ccesar 

 Fredrick, Merchant of Venice, into 

 the East Indies, and beyond the 

 Indies, written at sea, in the Hercules 

 of London, the 25th March, 1588, and 

 translated out of Italian by Mr. 

 THOMAS HICKOCKE, Lond., 4to. 

 1588." The author, who left Venice 

 in 1563, crossed over from Cape 

 Comorin to Chilaw, to be present at 



the fishery of pearls, which he de- 

 scribes almost as it is practised at the 

 present time. The divers engaged in 

 it were all Christians (see Christianity 

 in Ceylon, ch. i. p. 11), under tin; 

 care of friars of the order of St. 

 Paul. Colombo was then a hold of 

 the Portuguese, but without " walles 

 or enemies ; " and thence "to see how 

 they gather the ?innamon, or take it 

 from the tree that it groweth on 

 (because the time that I was there, 

 was the season that thejr gather it, 

 in the moneth of Aprill) I, to 

 satisfie my desire, went into a wood 

 three miles from the citie, although 

 in great danger, the Portugals 

 being in arms, and in the field with 

 the king of the country." Here he 

 gives with great accuracy the par- 

 ticulars of the process of peeling 

 cinnamon, as it is still practised by 

 the Chalias. 



