CHAP. IV.
MANUFACTURES.
The silk alluded to in the last chapter must have been brought from China for re-exportation to the West. Silk is frequently mentioned in the Mahawanso[1] but never with any suggestion of its being a native product of Ceylon.
1: Silk is mentioned 20 B.C. Rajaratnacari, p. 49. Mahawanso, ch. xxiii. p. 139.
Coir and Cordage.—EDRISI speaks of cordage made from the fibre of the coco-nut, to prepare which, the natives of Oman and Yemen resorted to Ceylon[1]; so that the Singhalese would appear to have been instructed by the Arabs in the treatment of coir, and its formation into ropes; an occupation which, at the present day, affords extensive employment to the inhabitants of the south and south-western coasts. Ibn Batuta describes the use of coir, for sewing together the planking of boats, as it was practised at Zafar in the fourteenth century[2]; and the word itself bespeaks its Arabian origin, as ALBYROUNI, who divides the Maldives and Laccadives into two classes, calls the one group the Dyvah-kouzah, or islands that produce cowries; and the other the Dyvah-kanbar, or islands that produce coir.[3]
1: EDRISI, t. i. p. 74.
2: Voyages, &c., vol. ii. p. 207. Paris, 1854.
3: ALBYROUNI, in REYNAUD, Fragm. Arabes, &c., pp, 93, 124 The Portuguese adopted the word from the Hindus, and CASTANEDA, in Hist. of the Discovery of India, describes the Moors of Sofalah sewing their boats with "cayro" ch. v, 14, xxx. 75.
Dress.—The dress of the people was of the simplest kind, and similar to that which is worn at the present day. The bulk of the population wore scanty cloths, without shape or seam, folded closely round the body and the portion of the limbs which it is customary to cover; and the Chinese, who visited the island in the seventh century, described the people as clothed in the loose robe, still known as a "comboy," a word probably derived from the Chinese koo-pei, which signifies cotton.[1]
1: See [Part v. ch. iii.] on the Knowledge of Ceylon possessed by the Chinese.