No. 60. — 1908.] couto : history of ceylon. 



89 



corrupted form amongst our physicians, because some call it 

 quirfe, others quirfa. The Persians name it darcin, which 

 means " wood of China " : because as the Chins were the first 

 who carried to the Strait of Persia the drugs, stuffs, and wares 

 of the East, and from there through the hands of the Persians 

 all passed to Europe, by the names that they gave them there 

 these things were known, and not by their proper ones which 

 they bore in their own countries. Serapion 1 interprets this 

 darcin, and says that it means " tree of China," because he 

 thought that they grew in that province, owing to finding 

 cinnamon in the hands of the Chins, as we have said. After 

 the same manner Arrian 2 was deceived in saying that cassia 

 and zinguir, which were certain varieties of cinnamon, grew 

 in some places of the Troglodyte, and that thence the mer- 

 chants carried them to Greece. 



Pliny 3 fell into the same error, saying that cinnamon grew 

 in Ethiopia near the Troglodyte, and that that part through 

 which the equator ran was called by the ancient authors 

 cinamomi fera, which means " country that produces cinna- 

 mon," which must have originated from this cinnamon's 

 having reached his hands by way of the Red Sea by means of 

 the Arab merchants who lived in that part of the Troglodyte, 

 and not asking in Greece where this drug grew, it was thought 

 that it was produced in the country of the Arabs who brought 

 it thither : as also some ancient writers, because they saw 

 cinnamon come by way of Aleppo, called it cinamomo alipitino. 

 And because of this confusion we do not know today what 

 kinds of spiceries and scents are duaca, mocroto, magla, and 

 asiplij, of which Arrian makes mention 4 , who says that they 

 grow in Arabia and Ethopia : nor the nicato, gabalio, and tarro, 

 which Pliny 5 named as scents of Arabia, whence we know of 

 nothing but incense, storax, and myrrh, which possibly may 

 be those of Pliny ; nor in the whole of Ethiopia was there any 

 drug but ginger, and this very bad, and only in the kingdom 

 of Damute. 



And returning to the names of cinnamon, the Malays call 

 it caio manis, which in their language means " sweet wood," 

 which is the caisman or caesmanis of the Greeks : because it 



1 Liber Serapionis aggregatus in medicinis simplicibus. Venice. 

 1479 (and later editions). 



2 The reference seems to be to the Periplus (see McCrindle's ed. 62). 



3 I cannot find any statement, such as is here attributed to Pliny, in 

 McCrindle's Anc. Ind. 



4 See McCrindle's Erythr. Sea 15 ff. 



5 I cannot find such names in McCrindle's Anc. Ind. 



