286 



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



It is only fair to Temient to say that for some of the state- 

 ments to which I have appended query marks, &c., he has the 

 authority of Barros, the official historian of Portuguese India ; 

 but a large number are due to misunderstanding of, or wrong 

 deductions from, the Portuguese accounts ; while the mis- 

 spellings can only be attributed to sheer carelessness. 



Another example of Tennent's reasoning from wrong 

 premises is found in the long footnote to which I have 

 referred above. It runs as follows : — 



This fact is not without significance in relation to the claim 

 of Ceylon to a " natural monopoly " of the finest qualities of 

 cinnamon. * Its existence as a production of the island had 

 been made known to Europe by Di Conti, seventy years before ; 

 and Ibn Batuta asserts that Malabar had been supplied with 

 cinnamon from Ceylon at a still earlier period. It may therefore 

 be inferred that there can have been nothing very remarkable 

 in the quality or repute of the spice at the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century [?] ; else the Portuguese, who had been mainly 

 attracted to the East by the fame of its spices, would have made 

 their earliest visit to the country which afterwards acquired its 

 renown by producing the rarest of them : 



" canella 



Com que Ceilao he rica, illustre, e bella." 



Camoens, canto ix. st. 14. 



On the contrary, their first inquiries were for pepper, and 

 their chief resort was to the Dekkan, north of Cape Comorin, 

 which was celebrated for producing it. (Tohfut-ul-Mujahideen, 

 ch. iv. s. i. p. 77.) [The work referred to says nothing about the 

 Dekhan, &c] It was not till 1516 that Barbosa proclaimed 

 the superiority of Ceylon cinnamon over all others [?], and there 

 is reason to believe, whatever doubt there may be as to its early 

 introduction into the island, that its high reputation is com- 

 paratively modern, and attributable to the attention bestowed 

 upon its preparation for market by the Portuguese [?], and after- 

 wards in its cultivation by the Dutch. De Barros, however, 

 goes so far as to describe Ceylon as the Mother of Cinnamon, 

 " canella de que ella he madre como dissemos." — Dec. III. lib. ii. 

 ch. i. [The taking over of the last two words in the quotation is, 

 I think, a proof of Tennent's ignorance of Portuguese.] 



* This subject is dealt with by Tennent in a very lengthy note on 

 pp. 600-4 of vol. I. of his work (5th ed.). 



