[Footnote 1:  Relation, vol. i. p. 6.]

[Footnote 2:  [Greek:  Duo ie basileis eisin en te neso enantioi allelon, ho eis echon ton huakinthon, kai d eteros to meros to allo en ps esti emporion kai he leine.]

COSMAS INDIC.]

But there is evidence that the subjection of this portion of Ceylon to the chief of the great insular empire was at that period currently believed in the East.  In the a “Garsharsp-Namah” a Persian poem of the tenth century, by Asedi, a manuscript of which was in the possession of Sir William Ouseley, the story turns on a naval expedition, fitted out by Delak, whose dominions extended from Persia to Palestine, and despatched at the request of the Maharaja against Baku, the King of Ceylon, and in the course of the narrative, Garsharsp and his fleet reach their destination at Kalah, and there achieve a victory over the “Shah of Serendib."[1]

[Footnote 1:  OUSELEY’S Travels, vol. i. p. 48.]

It must be observed, that one form of the Arabic letter K is sounded like G, so that Kalah would be pronounced Gala.[1] The identity, however, is established not merely by similarity of sound, but by the concurrent testimony of Cosmas and the Arabian geographers[2], as to the nature and extent of the intercourse between China and Persia, statements which are intelligible if referred to that particular point, but inapplicable to any other.

[Footnote 1:  Kalah may possibly be identical with the Singhalese word gala, which means an “enclosure,” and the deeply bayed harbour of Galle would serve to justify the name. Galla signifies a rock, and this derivation would be equally sustained by the natural features of the place, and dangerous coral reefs which obstruct the entrance to the port.]

[Footnote 2:  DULAURIER, in the Journal Asiatique for Sept. 1846, vol. xlix. p. 209, has brought together the authorities of Aboulfeda, Kazwini, and others to show that Kalah be situated in Ceylon, and he has combated the conjecture of M. Alfred Maury that it may be identical with Kedsh in the Malay Peninsula.—­REINAUD, Relation, &c.  Disc., pp. xli.—­lxxxiv., Introd. ABOULFEDA, p. ccxviii.]

Coupled with these considerations, however, the identity of name is not without its significance.  It was the habit of the Singhalese to apply to a district the name of the principal place within it; thus Lanka, which in the epic of the Hindus was originally the capital and castle of Ravana, was afterwards applied to the island in general; and according to the Mahawanso, Tambapani, the point of the coast where Wijayo landed, came to designate first the wooded country that surrounded it, and eventually the whole area of Ceylon.[1] In the same manner Galla served to describe not only the harbour of that name, but the district north and east of it to the extent of 600 square miles, and De Barros, De Couto, and Ribeyro, the chroniclers of the Portuguese in Ceylon, record it as a tradition of the island, that the inhabitants of that region had acquired the name of the locality, and were formerly known as “Gallas."[2]