The first account of the island of Ceylon, under the name of Taprobane, was brought to Europe by the Macedonians, who had accompanied Alexander into the east.  It is mentioned, and a short description given of it, by Onesicritus and Eratosthenes.  Iambulus, however, who lived in the time of Augustus, is the first author who enters into any details regarding it; and though much of what he states is undoubtedly fabulous, yet there are particulars surprizingly correct, and such as confirm his own account, that he actually, visited the island.  According to Diodorus Siculus, he was the son of a merchant, and a merchant himself; and while trading in Arabia for spices, he was taken prisoner and carried into Arabia, whence he was carried off by the Ethiopians, and put into a ship, which was driven by the monsoon to Ceylon.  The details he mentions, that are most curious and most conformable to truth, are the stature of the natives and the flexibility of their joints; the length of their ears, bored and pendant; the perpetual verdure of the trees; the attachment of the natives to astronomy; their worship of the elements, and particularly of the sun and moon; their cotton garments; the men having one wife in common; the days and nights being equal in length; and the Calamus, or Maiz.  It is extraordinary, howeve’r, that Iambulus never mentions cinnamon, which, as he was a dealer in spices, it might have been supposed would have attracted his particular attention.

One of the most celebrated geographers among the ancients, flourished during the reign of Augustus;—­we allude to Strabo:  his fundamental principles are, the globosity of the earth, and its centripetal force; he also lays down rules for constructing globes, but he seems ignorant of the mode of fixing the position of places by their latitude or longitude, or, at least, he neglects it.  In order to render his geographical knowledge more accurate and complete, he travelled over most of the countries between Armenia on the east and Etruria on the west, and from his native country, on the borders of the Euxine sea, to the borders of Ethiopia.  The portion of the globe which he describes, is bounded on the north by the Baltic, on the east by the Ganges, on the south by the mouth of the river Senegal, and on the west by Spain.  In describing the countries which he himself had visited, he is generally very accurate, but his accounts of those he had not visited, are frequently erroneous or very incomplete.  His information respecting Ceylon and the countries of the Ganges, seems to have been derived entirely from the statements brought to Europe by the generals of Alexander.