There are a multitude of Chinese authorities to the same effect.  One of the most remarkable books in any language is a Chinese Encyclopaedia which under the title of Wen-hian-thoung-khao, or “Researches into ancient Monuments,” contains a history of every art and science form the commencement of the empire to the era of the author MA-TOUAN-LIN, who wrote in the thirteenth century.  M. Stanislas Julien has published in the Journal Asiatique for July 1836 a translation of that portion of this great work which has relation to Ceylon.  It is there stated of the aborigines that when “les marchands des autres royaumes y venaient commercer, ils ne laissaient pas voir leurs corps, et montraient au moyen de pierres precieuses le prix que pouvaient valoir les merchandises.  Les marchands venaient et en prenaient une quantite equivalente a leurs marchandises.”—­Journ.  Asiat. t. xxviii. p. 402; xxiv. p. 41.  I have extracts from seven other Chinese works, written between the seventh and the twelfth centuries, in all of which there occurs the same account of Ceylon,—­that it was formerly supposed to be inhabited by dragons and demons, and that when “merchants from all nations come to trade with the, they are invisible, but leave their precious wares spread out with an indication of the value set on them, and the Chinese take them at the prices stipulated.”—­Leang-shoo, “History of the Leang Dynasty,” A.D. 630, b. liv. p. 13. Nan-she, “History of the Southern Empire,” A.D. 650, p. xxxviii. p. 14. Jung-teen, “Cyclopaedia of History,” A.D. 740, b. cxciii. p. 8.  The Tae-ping, a “Digest of History,” compiled by Imperial command, A.D. 983, b. dccxciii. p. 9. Tsih-foo-yuen-kwei, the “Great Depositary of the National Archives,” A.D. 1012, b. cccclvi. p. 21. Sin-Jang-shoo, “New History of the Tang Dynasty,” A.D. 1060, b. cxlvi. part ii. p. 10. Wan heen-tung-Kwan, “Antiquarian Researches,” A.D. 1319, b. cccxxxviii. p. 24.]

The chain of evidence is rendered complete by a passage in Pliny, which, although somewhat obscure (facts relating to the Seres being confounded with statements regarding Ceylon), nevertheless serves to show that the custom in question was then well known to the Singhalese ambassadors sent to the Emperor Claudius, and was also familiar to the Greek traders resorting to the island.  The envoys stated, at Rome, that the habit of the people of their country was, on the arrival of traders, to go to “the further side of some river where wares and commodities are laid down by the strangers, and if the natives list to make exchange, they have them taken away, and leave other merchandise in lieu thereof, to content the foreign merchant."[1]