No. 39.— 1889.] ACCOUNT OF CEYLON. 



233 



JOHANN JACOB SAAR'S ACCOUNT OF CEYLON, 



1647-1657, 



Translated by Ph. Freudenberg, Esq., Consul 

 in Ceylon for the German Empire. 



(Read January 28, 1885 *) 



INTRODUCTION. 

 OHANN JACOB SAAR was in his nineteenth year 

 when he left home, on Easterday, 1644, his father 

 sending him to Hamburg to find a situation. After 

 spending two months at Hamburg in unsuccessful 

 search of employment, he went on to Amsterdam. His 

 quitting Nuremberg — then one of the foremost commercial 

 towns on the Continent — for Hamburg, where the " Hansa " 

 still existed, and his pushing on to Amsterdam, which, since 

 the destruction of Antwerp, had risen to commercial 

 eminence, suggests that it was commercial employment he 

 desired. Saar's statement that he did not find a condition at 

 Amsterdam tends to confirm this supposition, conditionieren 

 being to the present day in Southern Germany an expres- 

 sion for holding a mercantile post. 



Failing to secure an appointment after six months' fruitless 

 effort, even at Amsterdam, Saar enlisted as Adelpursch — his 

 own translation of the Dutch word Adelborst, " cadet." As 

 a matter of fact, he enlisted as a common soldier, whose rise 

 in the ranks depended solely upon military qualifications. 



* An apology is due to the translator for the great delay in passing this 

 Paper through the press. It obviously demanded careful editing : the 

 translator expressed his inability to annotate the text : leisure to carry to 

 completion the requisite notes has never come to the Editing Secretary. For 

 the greater part of the editing the Society is indebted to the erudition and 

 ungrudging labour of Mr. D. W. Ferguson, without whose generous aid the 

 Paper might never have seen the light. — B., Hon. Sec. 



