c. 1328.—"In this India are certain trees which have leaves so big that five or six men can very well stand under the shade of one of them."—Fr. Jordanus, 29-30.
c. 1430.—"These leaves are used in this country for writing upon instead of paper, and in rainy weather are carried on the head as a covering, to keep off the wet. Three or four persons travelling together can be covered by one of these leaves stretched out." And again: "There is also a tree called tal, the leaves of which are extremely large, and upon which they write."—N. Conti, in India in the XV. Cent., 7 and 13.
1672.—"Talpets or sunshades."—Baldaeus, Dutch ed., 102.
1681.—"There are three other trees that must not be omitted. The first is Talipot...."—Knox, 15.
" "They (the priests) have the honour of carrying the Tallipot with the broad end over their heads foremost; which none but the King does."—Ibid. 74. [See TALAPOIN.]
1803.—"The talipot tree ... affords a prodigious leaf, impenetrable to sun or rain, and large enough to shelter ten men. It is a natural umbrella, and is of as eminent service in that country as a great-coat tree would be in this. A leaf of the talipot-tree is a tent to the soldier, a parasol to the traveller, and a book to the scholar."—Sydney Smith, Works, 3rd ed. iii. 15.
1874.—"... dans les embrasures ... s'étalaient des bananiers, des tallipots...."—Franz, Souvenirs d'un Cosaque, ch. iv.
1881.—"The lofty head of the talipot palm ... the proud queen of the tribe in Ceylon, towers above the scrub on every side. Its trunk is perfectly straight and white, like a slender marble column, and often more than 100 feet high. Each of the fans that compose the crown of leaves covers a semicircle of from 12 to 16 feet radius, a surface of 150 to 200 square feet."—Haeckel's Visit to Ceylon, E.T. p. 129.
TALISMAN, s. This word is used by many medieval and post-medieval writers for what we should now call a [moollah], or the like, a member of the Mahommedan clergy, so to call them. It is doubtless the corruption of some Ar. term, but of what it is not easy to say. Qu. talāmiẓa, 'disciples, students'? [See Burton, Ar. Nights, ix. 165.] On this Prof. Robertson Smith writes: "I have got some fresh light on your Talisman.
"W. Bedwell, the father of English Arabists, in his Catalogue of the Chapters of the Turkish Alkoran, published (1615) along with the Mohammedis Imposturae, and Arabian Trudgman, has the following, quoted from Postellus de Orbis Concordia, i. 13: 'Haec precatio (the fātiḥa) illis est communis ut nobis dominica: et ita quibusdum ad battologiam usque recitatur ut centies idem, aut duo aut tria vocabula repetant dicendo, Alhamdu lillah, hamdu lillah, hamdu lillah, et cetera ejus vocabula eodem modo. Idque facit in publicà oratione Taalima, id est sacrificulus, pro his qui negligenter orant ut aiunt, ut ea repititione suppleat eorum erroribus.... Quidam medio in campo tam assiduè, ut defessi considant; alii circumgirando corpus,' etc.