From age to age a scene so lovely has imparted a colouring of romance to the adventures of the seamen who, in the eagerness of commerce, swept round the shores of India, to bring back the pearls and precious stones, the cinnamon and odours, of Ceylon.  The tales of the Arabians are fraught with the wonders of “Serendib;” and the mariners of the Persian Gulf have left a record of their delight in reaching the calm havens of the island, and reposing for months together in valleys where the waters of the sea were overshadowed by woods, and the gardens were blooming in perennial summer.[1]

[Footnote 1:  REINAUD, Relation des Voyages Arabes, &c., dans le neuvieme siecle.  Paris, 1845, tom. ii. p. 129.]

Geographical Position.—­Notwithstanding the fact that the Hindus, in their system of the universe, had given prominent importance to Ceylon, their first meridian, “the meridian of Lanka,” being supposed to pass over the island, they propounded the most extravagant ideas, both as to its position and extent; expanding it to the proportions of a continent, and at the same time placing it a considerable distance south-east of India.[1]

[Footnote 1:  For a condensed account of the dimensions and position attributed to Lanka, in the Mythic Astronomy of the Hindus, see REINAUD’s Introduction to Aboulfeda, sec. iii. p. ccxvii., and his Memoire sur l’Inde, p. 342; WILFORD’s Essay on the Sacred Isles of the West, Asiat.  Researches, vol. x, p. 140.]

The native Buddhist historians, unable to confirm the exaggerations of the Brahmans, and yet reluctant to detract from the epic renown of their country by disclaiming its stupendous dimensions, attempted to reconcile its actual extent with the fables of the eastern astronomers by imputing to the agency of earthquakes the submersion of vast regions by the sea.[1] But evidence is wanting to corroborate the assertion of such an occurrence, at least within the historic period; no record of it exists in the earliest writings of the Hindus, the Arabians, or Persians; who, had the tradition survived, would eagerly have chronicled a catastrophe so appalling.[2] Geologic analogy, so far as an inference is derivable from the formation of the adjoining coasts, both of India and Ceylon, is opposed to its probability; and not only plants, but animals, mammalia, birds, reptiles, and insects, exist in Ceylon, which are not to be found in the flora or fauna of the Indian continent.[3]

[Footnote 1:  SIR WILLIAM JONES adopted the legendary opinion that Ceylon “formerly perhaps, extended much farther to the west and south, so as to include Lanka or the equinoctial point of the Indian astronomers.”—­Discourse on the Institution of a Society for inquiring into the History, &c., of the Borderers, Mountaineers, and Islanders of Asia.—­Works, vol. i. p. 120.

The Portuguese, on their arrival in Ceylon in the sixteenth century, found the natives fully impressed by the traditions of its former extent and partial submersion; and their belief in connection with it, will be found in the narratives and histories of De Barros and Diogo de Couto, from which they have been transferred, almost without abridgment, to the pages of Valentyn.  The substance of the native legends will be found in the Mahawanso, c. xxii. p. 131; and Rajavali, p. 180, 190.]