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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XI. 



Island it enjoys a variety of climates at the same time. For 

 this reason it has the summer and winter, which only two 

 seasons prevail at the same time, but in different parts, and are 

 what the natives call the Cacliao (south-west monsoon) and the 

 Vara, or north-east monsoon. They experience always both 

 winter and summer ; for the south winds, which commence 

 in April and last six months, produce the summer season in 

 the lower and maritime regions, the lands of which lie within 

 the Cape, whilst it is winter in those above, where the wind 

 blows from the north ; and when the north wind season blows 

 in these regions, it is winter in the opposite districts. 



The ancient geographers vary from the moderns as to its 

 names and dimensions : for Ptolemy, Pliny, and Ariston call 

 it (as it might probably be inferred) Traprobana. They 

 made it to extend in the south part until they joined it to the 

 Maldive Islands (las Islas de Maldiva), which are more than 

 seventy leagues, and from which it might have been after- 

 wards separated, the sea having submerged the low-country 

 all that space, according to a tradition the Zingalas have, and 

 which can be proved by similar occurrences. 



Lipsius says that in the time of our forefathers the ocean 

 swallowed up two islands in the neighbourhood of Zealand, 

 and did not hold as fabulous what the ancients relate about 

 the great Island Atlantic, and afterwards of Helice in 

 Achaia and Bura, and when every day increasing and by 

 sudden inundations the sea went eating up the faithless 

 margin of the Frisii, Caninefates, and Cauci. 



But at this day it is reduced within such limits that it will 

 have in length about eighty, in width sixty, and in circum- 

 ference one hundred and sixty leagues, although no author 

 gives it less than one hundred. The Calvinists (Hollanders), 

 with more of boasting than any real knowledge, in the 

 journals they have had printed of their voyage to Geylan in 

 the year 1602, in some parts give it a circumference of nine 

 hundred leagues and in others three hundred and sixty. So 

 scant is their knowledge and so many are the contradictions 

 in their writings. 



