No. 36. — 1888.] THE MOOES OF CEYLON. 



235 



Arabs." 1 The natives of Mauritania and of the regions 

 extending eastwards to the Euphrates were known to the 

 Greeks and Romans also by the name of Saracens. It is 

 matter of history how this 



"Countless multitude, 



Syrian, Moor, Saracen, fresh renegade, 



Persian and Copt and Tartar in one bond 



Of erring faith conjoined — strong in the youth 



And heat of zeal — a dreadful brotherhood," 

 overran Spain and attempted to conquer Europe north of the 

 Pyrennees, and how their fate was decided by the dreadful 

 battle fought on the plains of Tours. 2 When the Portuguese 

 navigated the eastern seas in the fifteenth century, and found 

 Muhammadans along the western shores of India and Ceylon, 

 they gave them the name of Moros, which in English 

 is " Moors." 3 In India that name is no longer used to denote 

 Muhammadans ; but in Ceylon we continue to use it in a 

 loose way, as if our information will not permit us to speak 

 definitely, or to identify the nationality of this people. I 

 believe that the honorific Mdrakar or Marikar, which 

 appears so often appended to a Muhammadan name both 

 in South India and Ceylon, is a relic of Portuguese official 

 language in a Tamil garb. It means " a man of Marocco," 



1 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, VI., p. 353 (Dr. Smith's ed.). 



2 Mr. Harris, who accompanied the British mission to Morocco last 

 year (1887), gives a vivid account of the present condition of the Moors in 

 the pages of the Illustrated London News, from which I quote as follows : — 

 " The Moors, like all other dynasties, have risen and fallen, and though their 

 fall was not as the fall of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, or Rome, yet it was 

 to themselves as disastrous as any, for though they were not exterminated, 

 they had to fly bask to their wild African soil, where year by year they 

 are sinking deeper into ignorance and bigotry. They have lost their 

 activity, these Moors of to-day. Instead of leading his soldiers to battle, 

 their Sultan sits in splendid halls, passing his life in indolence, save when, 

 now and again on the march from one capital to another, he deigns to 

 chastise some erring tribe with fire and sword. The Moors, whose ances- 

 tors once conquered in almost every war they undertook, sit and sigh and 

 sing quaint ballads to Granada, their mountain home in the Sierra Nevada, 

 and weep now and again over the keys of the houses which their ancestors 

 possessed in Spain." (Sept. 24, 1887.) 



3 So Hindus were called by them Gentios, in English <; Gentoos." This 

 word, too, has disappeared in India. 



49—89 C 



