The ideas of the Chinese regarding the mythical period of Singhalese history, and the first peopling of the island, are embodied in a very few sentences which are repeated throughout the series of authors, and with which we are made familiar in the following passage from F[)A] HIAN:—­” Sze-tseu-kw[)o], the kingdom of lions[1], was inhabited originally not by men but by demons and dragons.[2] Merchants were attracted to the island, by the prospect of trade; but the demons remained unseen, merely exposing the precious articles which they wished to barter:  with a price marked for each, at which the foreign traders were at liberty to take them, depositing the equivalents indicated in exchange.  From the resort of these dealers, the inhabitants of other countries, hearing of the attractions of the island, resorted to it in large numbers, and thus eventually a great kingdom was formed."[3]

[Footnote 1:  Wan-heen tung-kaou, b. cccxxxviii. p. 24.]

[Footnote 2:  The Yakkhos and Nagas ("devils” and “serpents”) of the Mahawanso.]

[Footnote 3:  Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki, ch. xxxviii. p. 333.  Transl.  REMUSAT.  This account of Ceylon is repeated almost verbatim in the Tung-teen, and in numerous other Chinese works, with the addition that the newly-formed kingdom of Sinhala, “Sze-tseu-kw[)o],” took its name from the “skill of the natives in training lions.”—­B. cxciii. pp. 8, 9; Tae-ping, b. dccxciii. p. 9; Sin-Tang-shoo, b. cxlvi. part ii. p. 10.  A very accurate translation of the passage as it is given by MA-TOUAN-LIN is published by M. Stanislas Julien in the Journ.  Asiat. for July, 1836, tom. xxix. p. 36.]

The Chinese were aware of two separate races, one occupying the northern and the other the southern extremity of the island, and were struck with the resemblance of the Tamils to the Hoo, a people of Central Asia, and of the Singhalese to the Leaou, a mountain tribe of Western China.[1] The latter they describe as having “large ears, long eyes, purple faces, black bodies, moist and strong hands and feet, and living to one hundred years and upwards.[2] Their hair was worn long and flowing, not only by the women but by the men.”  In these details there are particulars that closely resemble the description of the natives of the island visited by Jambulus, as related in the story told by Diodorus.[3]

[Footnote 1:  Too-Hiouen, quoted in the Tung-teen, b. cxciii. p. 8.]

[Footnote 2:  Taou-e che-le[)o], quoted in the Hae-kw[)o]-too che, or “Foreign Geography,” b. xviii p. 15.]

[Footnote 3:  DIODORUS SICULUS, lib. ii. ch. liii.  See ante, Vol.  I. P. v. ch. 1. p. 153.]