-B'8 -Journal r. a. s. €eylon, [extra Mo 



treat little place, surrounded by a wall and bastions of wood. 

 All the neighbouring shore was covered with trunks of cinnamon 

 trees, torn up by the torrents. This wood was collected on the 

 beach, and formed as it were hillocks. The inhabitants of Coro- 

 mandel and of Malabar take it away without payment, save only 

 that in return for this favor they make a present to the Sultan of 



of corroborative evidence of the existence of Puttalam as a town of any import- 

 ance at this period, and the want of any river in its neighbourhood answering 

 to the " torrents" spoken of by the traveller. This last point, and the doubt- 

 ful existence of cinnamon so far north as Puttalam, are the only difficulties 

 raised by Tennent (Vol. I., p. 580). The site of Batthdlah has to be found with a 

 full consideration of the cinnamon question, and, of the site of Menar Mendelg, 

 the town at which Ibn Batuta: first halts on his journey towards the Peak. 

 With his usual laborious care Tennent (Vol. I., p. 596) has examined all the early 

 authorities known to him, and concludes that the text here gives the first 

 mention of cinnamon as a product of Ceylon. Col. Yule, however (Marco 

 Polo, Vol. II., p. 255), points out that two previous notices of it exist, one in 

 Kazwini (circa A.D. 1275), the other in a letter from John of Montecorvino 

 (Ethe's Kazwini, 229 ; Cathay, 213.) 



The account given by our traveller shews that it was not as yet cultivated , 

 and perhaps that the " trunks" seen by him were not those of the valuable variety 

 of later days, but of the common indigenous cassia. I am not aware whether the 

 cultivation, or growth, of cinnamon positively ceases at Chilaw, as seems to 

 be the common opinion: but, even if this be true of the Ceylon cinnamon of 

 commerce, it may not be so of the indigenous plant, and the area of production 

 may be more limited now than in the 4th century. Ribeyro (Lee's edn., p. 15), 

 says " there is a forest of it 12 leagues in extent between Chilaw and the pagoda 

 of Tenevary," without saying that Chilaw is the northern limit: the French trans- 

 lator (at p. 11) in his note, remarks ' that it is only found between Grudumatt 

 and Tenevare. 1 Now the promontory of Kutiraimalai is a considerable 

 distance north of Puttalam: and I have little doubt that the French translator 

 had good authority for the assertion. The remaining difficulty, that of the 

 " torrents," inclines me to believe that the site of Batthdlah was probably 

 further north, near the mouth of the Kala-oya, where the free access to the 

 sea by the passage between Kalpitiya and Karativu would seem to designate a 

 more suitable situation for a Prince, whose strength lay in ships. 



It now remains to fix Menar Mendely, which has been identified by pre- 

 ceding commentators, and not unnaturally ^ with the Minneri Mundal of 



