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



same Arrian says. And so much so is this, that all others 

 recognize in them such superiority, that on any of them seeing 

 one from Ceilao, immediately it runs away from it as if mad, 

 of which we have experience every day in this city of Goa 

 among those that the king employs in his dockyard from 

 different countries 1 . 



Eratosthenes 2 , the Greek author, says that Tapobrana lies 

 in the Eoan Sea between the east and the west, separated by 

 a twenty days' sail from Persia, at the commencement of 

 India. This writer speaks even more clearly of Ceilao, which 

 lies in eight degrees north between east and west ; and however 

 much wind the ship may have, she will not do more, starting 

 from the mouth of the Persian Gulf, than arrive in twenty days 

 at Ceilao, which is five hundred leagues 3 ; and Qamatra is not 

 in the Eoan Sea, but below the equator, and hence we have 

 proved Ceilao to be Tapobrana. 



Let us now come to the modern geographers who make it 

 Camatra. All of these looking for this island of Tapobrana 

 below the equator, where Ptolemy places it (because in his 

 time, as we have said, it extended two degrees to the south 

 side), and running along the whole coast of India as far as 

 beyond the Ganges, finding no other but Qamatra, without 

 further consideration made it Tapobrana ; as in like manner 

 without it they made the river Indus fall into the Gulf of Cam- 

 bay a, which is an error, and whence it arose we shall with the 

 divine favour show further on 4 . And so Benedeto Bordone 

 commenting on that passage in Pliny speaking of Tapobrana, 

 where he says " Septentrion non cwnitur" in the annotation 

 that he makes upon it reprehends Pliny for saying that in it 

 the star of the arctic pole was not seen : because he says that 

 those that live in Tapobrana in the part towards the Promon- 

 torium Colaicum see this pole at an elevation of thirteen degrees . 

 and that conformably to the altitudes in which those of that 

 island live, so will they see its elevation ; but that those 

 who lived below the equator could see neither one pole nor the 

 other, in which he contradicts himself, because he makes 

 Qamatra Tapobrana ; and the equator cuts this island of 



1 Valentyn here coolly transfers to the time when he wrote {circa 1720) 

 Couto's personal experience of over 120 years earlier ! This fable of the 

 recognition by other elephants of the superiority of those from Ceylon 

 is met with in many writers. I do not know who originated it. 



2 See supra, page 81, note 3 . 



3 Valentyn credits all this to Eratosthenes, and has " a hard wind," 

 " a light ship," and " the N. of the strait of Persia." 



1 This promise (which Valentyn, parrot- wise, also makes!) Oouto 

 appears not to have fulfilled. 



