[Footnote 4:  ABOU-ZEYD, Relation, &c., p. 50.]

[Footnote 5:  A translation of MASSOUDI’S Meadows of Gold in English was begun by Dr. Sprenger for the “Oriental Translation Fund,” but it has not advanced beyond the first volume, which was published in 1841.]

In the order of time, this is the place to allude to another Arabian mariner, whose voyages have had a world-wide renown, and who, more than any other author, ancient or modern, has contributed to familiarise Europe with the name and wonders of Serendib.  I allude to “Sindbad of the Sea,” whose voyages were first inserted by Galland, in his French translation of the “Thousand-and-one Nights.”  Sindbad, in his own tale, professes to have lived in the reign of the most illustrious Khalif of the Abbassides,—­

  “Sole star of all that place and time;—­
   And saw him, in his golden prime,
     The good Haroun Alraschid.”

But Haroun died, A.D. 808, and Sindbad’s narrative is so manifestly based on the recitals of Abou-zeyd and Massoudi, that although the author may have lived shortly after, it is scarcely possible that he could have been a contemporary of the great ruler of Bagdad.[1]

[Footnote 1:  REINAUD notices the Ketab-ala-jayb, or “Book of Wonders,” of MASSOUDI, as one of the works whence the materials of Sindbad’s Voyages were drawn. (Introd.  ABOULFEDA, vol. i. p. lxxvii.) HOLE published in 1797 A.D. his learned Remarks on the Origin of Sindbad’s Voyages, and in that work, as well as in LANGLE’S edition of Sindbad; and in the notes by LANE to his version of the “Arabian Nights’ Entertainment,” Edrisi, Kazwini, and many other writers are mentioned whose works contain parallel statements.  But though Edrisi and Kazwini wrote in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it does not follow that the author of Sindbad lived later than they, as both may have borrowed their illustrations from the same early sources.]

One inference is clear, from the story of Sindbad, that whilst the sea-coast of Ceylon was known to the Arabians, the interior had been little explored by them, and was so enveloped in mystery that any tale of its wonders, however improbable, was sure to gain credence.  Hence, what Sindbad relates of the shore and its inhabitants is devoid of exaggeration:  in his first visit the natives who received him were Malabars, one of whom had learned Arabic, and they were engaged in irrigating their rice lands from a tank.  These are incidents which are characteristic of the north-western coast of Ceylon at the present day; and the commerce, for which the island was remarkable in the ninth and tenth centuries is implied by the expression of Sindbad, that on the occasion of his next voyage, when bearing presents and a letter from the Khalif to the King of Serendib, he embarked at Bassora in a ship, and with him “were many merchants.”