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



appears that it also came to them with this Malay name, and 

 they corrupted it, the Greeks also calling it cassia lignea, a 

 name that we have found among none of the nations of the 

 East, having inquired well through all the physicians. And 

 venturing our opinion, it seems to us that it should be cais 

 lignea, which is the same as " wood of dais " : because anciently, 

 before the kingdom of Ormuz was transferred to the island of 

 Gerum, where it is today, the capital and emporium of the 

 whole of that strait was the island of Cais, which lies beyond 

 Ormuz inside the Strait 1 . And as at that time the merchants 

 of Europe stayed in that island, as they do today in that of 

 Ormuz, carrying away the cinnamon that the Chins brought 

 to them, it would seem that in Greece they said that they 

 brought it from the island of Cais, and that on this account 

 they called it cais lignea 2 . All this we say subject to correction 

 by the doctors of medicine, having meddled in a matter of their 

 profession ; because our intention was no more than to show 

 the corruption that time has wrought in the names of cin- 

 namon 3 . 



Dec. V., Bk. n., Chap. iv. 



Of the wars that there were in Geilao between those two brother- 

 kings : and of the succour that the Qamorim sent to Madune : 

 and of how Martini Afonso de Sousa defeated the armada of 

 the Qamorim in Beadald. 



So great was the ambition of Madune Pandar. king of 

 Ceitavaca, and so insufferable was it to him to see his brother, 

 although his elder, equal with himself in power, that he did 

 not cease to think of and devise methods of putting him to 

 death, and taking the kingdom from him, in order to obtain 

 the monarchy of the whole of that island. And so he planned 

 many times to give him poison, but without effect, because 

 they caught with it some whom he had for that purpose bribed 

 heavily, who under torture confessed the truth ; wherefore 

 thenceforward the king of Cotta took great care of himself, 

 eating only things cooked with his own hands 4 . Madune, 

 seeing that his plots were discovered, determined to take the 



1 See Teix. 236. 



2 Couto's ingenious derivations will not hold water. 



3 On the history of cinnamon see Fliickiger and Hanbury's Pharma- 

 cographia, 2nded. s London, 1879, pp. 519-23. 



4 As I have said above, the Rdjdvaliya passes over in silence this 

 period of Ceylon history. Couto repeats these accusations against 

 Mayadunne in V. n. x. (p. 99 infra). 



