to the name of the capital, Kandy.  It was not the capital in Benjamin’s time.  The difficulty still remains that it does not take twenty-three days, but about four days, to reach Ceylon from Quilon.  Renaudot states that in the tenth century a multitude of Jews resided in the island, and that they took part in the municipal government as well as other sects, as the King granted the utmost religious liberty.  See Pinkerton’s Travels, vol.  VII, p. 217.  A full description is also given of the ceremonial when any notability proceeds to immolate himself by committing himself to the flames.]

[Footnote 174:  Benjamin’s statements as to India and China are of course very vague, but we must remember he was the first European who as much as mentions China.  Having regard to the full descriptions of other countries of the old World by Arabic writers of the Middle Ages, and to the fact that the trade route then was principally by sea on the route indicated by Benjamin, it is surprising that we have comparatively little information about India and China from Arabic sources.  In none of their records is the Sea of Nikpa named, and it is not improbable that Benjamin coined this name himself from the root [Hebrew:] which occurs in the Bible four times; in the Song of Moses (Exod. xv. 8):  [Hebrew:] “The depths were curdled in the heart of the sea” (not “congealed” as the Version has it), Job x. 10:  [Hebrew:] “curdled me like cheese”; and in Zeph. i. 12 and Zech. xiv. 6.  The term “the curdling sea” would be very expressive of the tempestuous nature of the China Sea and of some of its straits at certain seasons of the year.]

[Footnote 175:  Marco Polo has much to say about the bird “gryphon” when speaking of the sea-currents which drive ships from Malabar to Madagascar.  He says, vol.  II, book III, chap. 33:  “It is for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size.  It is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him, the gryphon swoops down on him and eats him at leisure.  The people of those isles call the bird ‘Rukh.’” Yule has an interesting note (vol.  II, p. 348) showing how old and widespread the fable of the Rukh was, and is of opinion that the reason that the legend was localized in the direction of Madagascar was perhaps that some remains of the great fossil Aepyornis and its colossal eggs were found in that island.  Professor Sayce states that the Rukh figures much—­not only in Chinese folk-lore—­but also in the old, Babylonian literature.  The bird is of course familiar to readers of The Arabian Nights.]

[Footnote 176:  Neither Al-Gingaleh nor Chulan can be satisfactorily identified.  Benjamin has already made it clear that to get from India to China takes sixty-three days, that is to say twenty-three days from Khulam to Ibrig,