In the district of Dinavaca in the centre of the island, there is a prodigiously high mountain called the Peak of Adam, as some have conceived that our first parents lived there, and that the print of a foot, still to be seen on a rock on its summit, is his. The natives call this Amala Saripadi, or the mountain of the footstep. Some springs running down this mountain form a pool at the bottom, in which pilgrims wash themselves, believing that it purifies them from sin. The rock or stone on the top resembles a tomb-stone, and the print of the foot seems not artificial, but as if it had been made in the same manner as when a person treads upon wet clay, on which account it is esteemed miraculous. Pilgrims of all sorts resort thither from all the surrounding countries, even from Persia and China; and having purified themselves by washing in the pool below, they go to the top of the mountain, near which hangs a bell, which they strike, and consider its sound as a symbol of their having been purified; as if any other bell, on being struck, would not sound. According to the natives, Drama Rajah, the son of an ancient king of the island, having done penance on the mountain along with many disciples, and being about to go away, left the print of his foot on the rock as a memorial. It is therefore respected as the relic of a saint, and their common name for this person is Budam, which signifies the wise man. Some believe this saint to have been St Jesaphat, but it was more likely St Thomas, who has left many memorials in the east, and even in the west, both in Brasil and Paraguay.
The natural woods of Ceylon are like the most curious orchards and gardens of Europe, producing citrons, lemons, and many other kinds of delicious fruit. It abounds in cinnamon, cardamums, sugar-canes, honey, and hemp. It produces iron, of which the best firelocks in the east are made. It abounds in precious stones, as rubies, sapphires, cats-eyes, topazes, chrysolites, amythests, and berils. It has many civet-cats, and produces, the noblest elephants in all the east. Its rivers and shores abound in a variety of excellent fish, and it has many excellent ports fit for the largest ships.
End of the Portuguese Asia.
[CHAPTER V.]
VOYAGES AND TRAVELS IN EGYPT, SYRIA, ARABIA, PERSIA, AND INDIA. BY LUDOVICO VERTHEMA, IN 1503[33].
INTRODUCTION.
This ancient itinerary into the east, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, together with the subsequent chapter, containing the peregrinations of Cesar Frederick, about 80 years later, form an appropriate supplement to the Portuguese transactions in India, as furnishing a great number of observations respecting the countries, people, manners, customs, and commerce of the east at an early period. We learn from the Bibliotheque Universelle des Voyages. I. 264, that this itinerary was originally published in Italian at Venice, in 1520. The version followed on the present occasion was republished in old English, in 1811, in an appendix to a reprint of HAKLUYT'S EARLY VOYAGES, TRAVELS, AND DISCOVERIES; from which we learn that it was translated from Latine into Englishe, by Richarde Eden, and originally published in 1576. In both these English versions, the author is named Lewes Vertomannus; but we learn from the Biol. Univ. des Voy. that his real name was Ludovico Verthema, which we have accordingly adopted on the present occasion, in preference to the latinized denomination used by Eden. Although, in the present version, we have strictly adhered to the sense of that published by Eden 236 years ago, it has appeared more useful, and more consonant to the plan of our work, to render the antiquated language into modern English: Yet, as on similar occasions, we leave the Preface of the Author exactly in the language and orthography of Eden, the original translator.
[Footnote 33: Hakluyt, iv. App. pp. 547--612. Ed. Lond. 1810-11.]
The itinerary is vaguely dated in the title as of the year 1503, but we learn from the text, that Verthema set out upon the pilgrimage of Mecca from Damascus in the beginning of April 1503, after having resided a considerable time at Damascus to acquire the language, probably Arabic; and he appears to have left India on his return to Europe, by way of the Cape of Good Hope and Lisbon, in the end of 1508. From some circumstances in the text, but which do not agree with the commencement, it would appear that Verthema had been taken prisoner by the Mamelukes, when fifteen years of age, and was admitted into that celebrated military band at Cairo, after making profession of the Mahometan religion. He went afterwards on pilgrimage to Mecca, from Damascus in Syria, then under the dominion of the Mameluke Soldan of Egypt, and contrived to escape or desert from Mecca. By some unexplained means, he appears to have become the servant or slave of a Persian merchant, though he calls himself his companion, and along with whom he made various extensive peregrinations in India. At length he contrived, when at Cananore, to desert again to the Portuguese, through whose means he was enabled to return to Europe.
In this itinerary, as in all the ancient voyages and travels, the names of persons, places, and things, are generally given in an extremely vicious orthography, often almost utterly unintelligible, as taken down orally, according to the vernacular modes of the respective writers, without any intimate knowledge of the native language, or the employment of any fixed general standard. To avoid the multiplication of notes, we have endeavoured to supply this defect, by subjoining those names which are now almost universally adopted by Europeans, founded upon a more intimate acquaintance with the eastern languages. Thus the author, or his translator Eden, constantly uses Cayrus and Alcayr, for the modern capital of Egypt, now known either by the Arabic denomination Al Cahira, or the European designation Cairo, probably formed by the Venetians from the Arabic. The names used in this itinerary have probably been farther disguised and vitiated, by a prevalent fancy or fashion of giving latin terminations to all names of persons and places in latin translations. Thus, even the author of this itinerary has had his modern Roman name, Verthema, latinized into Vertomannus, and probably the Cairo, or Cayro of the Italian original, was corrupted by Eden into Cayrus, by way of giving it a latin sound. Yet, while we have endeavoured to give, often conjecturally, the better, or at least more intelligible and now customary names, it seemed proper to retain those of the original translation, which we believe may be found useful to our readers, as a kind of geographical glossary of middle-age terms.