Machine summary:
THE ARABS' KNOWLEDGE OF CEYLON EYLON occupies a unique position among the islands of the world in that it has been the object of unceasing attraction to outsiders from time immemorial.
Thus the sea-route from Europe to India and farther east, past the Makran, Malabar and Coromandel coasts and touching the islands ofLacadive and Maldive and Ceylon, was of great consequence in these voyages to the golden East.
It is thought that an Arab colony was established on the west coast of Sumatra bet• ween Padang and Benkoelen about the time of the commencement of the Christian era, and an important trade was kept up between Ceylon and · Arabia in pepper, gold and silver and tin.
It is surmised by many painstaking investigators3 that on the basis of the abundance of material regarding the sea-board of India and Ceylon, it can safely be said that he was in• debted to the adventurous merchants of Egypt and Arabia, especially those of the latter country, whose maritime activity extended in that age even beyond the island.
Thus from early times the beautiful island of Ceylon lay athwart the Arab sea-lanes and they must have possessed a good deal of knowledge about it.
NAME A STRANGE yet interesting feature of the historical geography of Ceylon is the fact that the island as a whole has never been known to the Arab and Wes tern worId by the name used· by the chief inhabitants, the · Sinahalese, in their own language, i.
1judud al-' Alam~-"Another island in 'this sea (Indian Ocean) is called Tabarna (Ceylon).