34 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. XX. 



of the same Chijs, whence the people of this country likewise 

 have the Chingalla language, of which we have spoken 1 . 



The other names that the geographers give to this island, 

 and other details relating to it, we leave for the commentaries 

 on the tables of our Geography , it being matter appropriate to 

 that place, where will be seen the delusion under which some 

 modern writers labour in saying that the Golden Chersonese, 

 which we call Samatra, is Tapobrana, and the rest that the 

 ancients fabulated regarding these two islands 2 . What now 

 concerns us is to know that it has very excellent and pure air, 

 and is for the most part fertile, luxuriant, principally from 

 eight degrees downward along the sea- coast as far as the 

 cape of Galle, and the mountain region. And in this distance, 

 which will be a tract of twenty leagues in length and ten in 

 breadth, is the bulk of the population, and most of the sea- 

 ports, and where Nature produces all the cinnamon that is used 

 in those and these parts. True it is that in many parts of the 

 East is found some, but it is uncultivated and wild, as will be 

 seen in the books of Commerce in the chapter on it, and also of 

 the rubies, catseyes, sapphires, and other kinds of precious 

 stones that it contains ; however none approaches in fineness in 

 its own kind to the three that we have named : here these three 

 sorts, the finest of them, are the most perfect of all those parts. 

 Of metals it has only iron, which is obtained in two parts, which 

 are called Cande and Tanavaca 3 ; and if there had been in it 

 as much gold as the ancients say 4 , the natives are such lovers 

 of it, and so diligent in demanding of the earth the metal and 

 precious stones that it holds within itself, that they would 



1 In I. ix. iii., which is devoted to a description of Malabar and its 

 peoples, Barros says : — " .... the native heathenry and proper indigena 

 of the country is that people whom we call Malabares : there is there 

 another, which came thither from the coast of Choromandel by reason 

 of the trade, whom they call Chingalas, who have their own language, 

 whom our people commonly call Chatijs." It is evident, I think, that 

 here Barros has confused Ghingdla and Chelim (see Hob.- Job. s.vv. 

 " Cheling," " Kling"). Barbosa (167) says of the inhabitants of Ceylon : 

 — " Their language is partly Malabar and partly of Cholmendal ;" while 

 Castanheda (II. xxii.) says : — " The language of the heathens isCanara 

 and Malabar." 



2 Barros' s Geography having been lost, Couto deals with this subject 

 in V. i. vii. 



3 " Dinavaca " in later Portuguese writers. The name has dis- 

 appeared from modern maps, the division of Denavaka no longer exist- 

 ing. It lay east of Ratnapura (c/. map in Rib. ). It is called Donivagga 

 in the Mahav. (lxxv. 70, 73). 



4 That is, taking Taprobane to have been Ceylon. 



