Page A particular Account of the Cinnamon-Description of the Tree-Methods of Cultivation-Manner of strip- ping off the Bark-Packing on board of Ship-Quali- ERRATA. VOL. I. Page 95, line 3, for were, read wear.-p. 139, line 13, prefer, read profess.-p. 158, VOL. II. Page 45, line 12, dele on.-p. 51, line 16, presently, read frequently.-p. 159, line 7, PART FIRST. DESCRIPTION OF CEYLON. CHAPTER I. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF CEYLON-SITUATION-NAME-EUROPEAN CONQUESTS-APPEARANCE-ADAM'S PEAK-RIVERSHARBOURS CLIMATE-SOIL-FOSSILS-ROADS-REVENUE— GOVERNMENT-TENURES-EXTRACTS FROM KNOX'S HISTORY. CEYLON is an island in the Indian Ocean, situate at the entrance of the bay of Bengal, between five degrees fortynine minutes and nine degrees fifty minutes of north latitude, and between seventy-nine degrees thirty minutes and eighty-one degrees fifty minutes of longitude east of Greenwich. It is said by Strabo to be as large as Britain*. Onesicritus, according to the same author, declared it to be in size upwards of five thousand stadia, not distinguishing VOL. I. *Strabo, Lib. II. p. 72. Paris, 1620. B its length from its breadth; which observation would lead one to suppose that Strabo himself was more correctly informed of its real shape, which resembles a pear. Pliny says that it was first discovered to be an island by Onesicritus, captain of the fleet of Alexander the Great. Eratosthenes, according to Pliny, gives the dimensions of it as being seven thousand stadia in breadth, and five thousand in length. It is singular that Pomponius Mela, who wrote in the reign of Claudius, should express a doubt whether Taprobane was an island, or the beginning of a new world, as it was not known to have been circumnavigated*. It is related by Pliny (lib. vi. cap. 24.) that a freedman of Annius Plocamus who rented the farms of the Red Sea, was driven into the Indian Ocean, while collecting the rents of his patron, and having reached the port of Hippuri in this island, brought to Rome a more certain account of it in the reign of the same Claudius, probably after Pomponius Mela had concluded his work. He declared that the Septemtrio, or Great Bear, was not visible on the island, which, if true, would prove that he was farther to the south than any part of Ceylon now existing. Indeed it is a tradition of the natives (supported, as it is said, by astronomical observations) that the island is much diminished in size from what it was formerly; which tradition is par Pomp. M. L. III. C. 7. |