[Footnote 1:  The "Divi" of Ammianus Marcellinus, who along with the Singhalese “Selendivi” sent ambassadors to the Emperor Julian, l xxii. c. 7.]

[Footnote 2:  A portion of the district near Tangalle is known to the present day as “Rouna.”—­Mahawanso, ch. ix. p. 57; ch. xxii. p. 130, &c.]

[Footnote 3:  See the account of Adam’s Peak, Vol.  II.  Pt.  VII. ch. ii.]

[Footnote 4:  ABOU-ZEYD, Relation, &c., vol. i. p. 5.]

[Footnote 5:  lb., p. 50.  The practice of burning the remains of the kings and of persons of exalted rank, continued as long as the native dynasty held the throne of Kandy.—­See KNOX’s Historical Relation of Ceylon, A.D. 1681, Part iii. c. ii.]

Such is the account of SOLEYMAN, but, in the second part of the manuscript, ABOU-ZEYD, on the authority of another informant, IBN WAHAB, who had sailed to the same countries, speaks of the pearls of Ceylon, and adds, regarding its precious stones, that they were obtained in part from the soil, but chiefly from those points of the beach at which the rivers flowed into the sea and to which the gems are carried down by the torrents from the hills.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Ibid., vol. i. p. 127.]

ABOU-ZEYD describes the frequent conventions of the heads of the national religion, and the attendance of scribes to write down from their dictation the doctrines of Buddhism, the legends of its prophets, and the precepts of its law.  This statement has an obvious reference to the important events recorded in the Mahawanso[1] of the reduction of the tenets, orally delivered by Buddha, to their written form, as they appear in the Pittakatayan; to the translation of the Atthakatha, from Singhalese into Pali, in the reign of Mahanamo, A.D. 410-432; and to the singular care displayed, at all times, by the kings and the priesthood, to preserve authentic records of every event connected with the national religion and its history.

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xxxiii. p. 207; ch. xxxvii. p. 252.]

ABOU-ZEYD adverts to the richness of the temples of the Singhalese, and to the colossal dimensions of their statues, and dwells with particularity on their toleration of all religious sects as attested by the existence there, in the ninth century, of a sect of Manichaeans, and a community of Jews.[1]

[Footnote 1:  It was to Ceylon that the terrified worshippers of Siva betook themselves in their flight, when Mahmoud of Ghuznee smote the idol and overthrew the temple of Somnaut, A.D. 1025. (FERISHTA, transl. by Briggs, vol. i. p. 71; REINAUD, Introd. to ABOULFEDA, vol. i. p. cccxlix. Memoires sur l’Inde, p. 270.) Twenty years previously, when the same orthodox invader routed the schismatic Carmathians at Moultan, the fugitive chief of the Sheahs found an asylum in Ceylon. (REINAUD, Journ.  Asiat., vol. xlv. p. 283; vol. xlvi. p. 129.) The latter circumstance