62 journal r. a. s. (ceylon). [Vol. VI L, Pt, IT. 



The Island was then (A. D. 850) still subject to its two 

 Kings, he- tells us. When in his continuation of this work 

 Abou Zeyd describes Ibn WahabV voyages (Tennent's Ceylon, 

 Yol. 1, p. 587) the still" water lagoons in which he so delighted, 

 and where he spent months in coasting about, could only have 

 been one of the lagoons either of Jaffna, Kalpitiya, or Batti- 

 caloa, " and it is evident from the narratives of Soleymanand Ibn 

 Wahab, that ships availing themselves of the monsoons to cross 

 the Indian Ocean, crept along the shore to Cape Comorin, and 

 passed close by Adam's Bridge to reach their destined ports." 



At page 591 of the same work it is said : — " The assertion of 

 Abou Zeyd as to the sovereignty of the Maharaja of Zabedj 

 at Kalah, is consistent with the statement of Soleyman, that 

 6 the Island was in subjection to two monarchs/ " 



In this we find still another strong support for our argument, 

 since the whole N.W. coast and Jaffna has from the most 

 ancient times been peopled by Tamils and Moors, thus account- 

 ing for the district being under the Maharajas of Zabedj, who 

 from B.C. 100 to A. D. 700 extended their empire and ruled 

 the Malay Islands, Kalah, and Travancore ; and it satisfactorily 

 accounts for the silence preserved by the priestly annalists of 

 the Kings who possessed the Hyacinth, as to the commercial 

 wealth of their rivals who governed the territory in which was 

 the great emporium. 



Sir E. Tennent also quotes the " Garsharsp-Namak" of about 

 the 10th century, in which the Maharaja having requested 

 Persian aid against the " Shah of Serendib," one Baku, a fleet is 

 sent, which lands at Kalah and obtains a signal victory over 

 Baku ; and this seems authentic, as the empire of Zabedj was 

 then breaking up, and the Kalah Viceroy likely to seek aid 

 from Persia, whose merchants profited so largely by its trade, 

 and indirectly proving the old enmity between Ruhuna and 

 Kalah, a feud at once understood as between the Tamil port 

 and the Sinhalese capital, but not applicable to Galle. 



