But there is evidence that the subjection of this portion of Ceylon to the chief of the great insular empire was at that period currently believed in the East. In the a "Garsharsp-Namah" a Persian poem of the tenth century, by Asedi, a manuscript of which was in the possession of Sir William Ouseley, the story turns on a naval expedition, fitted out by Delak, whose dominions extended from Persia to Palestine, and despatched at the request of the Maharaja against Baku, the King of Ceylon, and in the course of the narrative, Garsharsp and his fleet reach their destination at Kalah, and there achieve a victory over the "Shah of Serendib."[1]
1: OUSELEY'S Travels, vol. i. p. 48.
It must be observed, that one form of the Arabic letter K is sounded like G, so that Kalah would be pronounced Gala.[1] The identity, however, is established not merely by similarity of sound, but by the concurrent testimony of Cosmas and the Arabian geographers[2], as to the nature and extent of the intercourse between China and Persia, statements which are intelligible if referred to that particular point, but inapplicable to any other.
1: Kalah may possibly be identical with the Singhalese word gala, which means an "enclosure," and the deeply bayed harbour of Galle would serve to justify the name. Galla signifies a rock, and this derivation would be equally sustained by the natural features of the place, and dangerous coral reefs which obstruct the entrance to the port.
2: DULAURIER, in the Journal Asiatique for Sept. 1846, vol. xlix. p. 209, has brought together the authorities of Aboulfeda, Kazwini, and others to show that Kalah be situated in Ceylon, and he has combated the conjecture of M. Alfred Maury that it may be identical with Kedsh in the Malay Peninsula.—REINAUD, Relation, &c. Disc., pp. xli.—lxxxiv., Introd. ABOULFEDA, p. ccxviii.
Coupled with these considerations, however, the identity of name is not without its significance. It was the habit of the Singhalese to apply to a district the name of the principal place within it; thus Lanka, which in the epic of the Hindus was originally the capital and castle of Ravana, was afterwards applied to the island in general; and according to the Mahawanso, Tambapani, the point of the coast where Wijayo landed, came to designate first the wooded country that surrounded it, and eventually the whole area of Ceylon.[1] In the same manner Galla served to describe not only the harbour of that name, but the district north and east of it to the extent of 600 square miles, and De Barros, De Couto, and Ribeyro, the chroniclers of the Portuguese in Ceylon, record it as a tradition of the island, that the inhabitants of that region had acquired the name of the locality, and were formerly known as "Gallas."[2]
1: Mahawanso, ch. vii. p. 50.
2: A notice of this tribe will be found in another place. See Vol. II. Pt. VII. ch. ii.
Galle therefore, in the earlier ages, appears to have occupied a position in relation to trade of equal if not of greater importance than that which attaches to it at the present day. It was the central emporium of a commerce which in turn enriched every country of Western Asia, elevated the merchants of Tyre to the rank of princes, fostered the renown of the Ptolemies, rendered the wealth and the precious products of Arabia a gorgeous mystery[1], freighted the Tigris with "barbaric pearl and gold," and identified the merchants of Bagdad and the mariners of Bassora with associations of adventure and romance. Yet, strange to say, the native Singhalese appear to have taken no part whatever in this exciting and enriching commerce; their name is never mentioned in connection with the immigrant races attracted by it to their shores, and the only allusions of travellers to the indigenous inhabitants of the island are in connection with a custom so remarkable and so peculiar as at once to identify the tribes to whom it is ascribed with the remnant of the aboriginal race of Veddahs, whose descendants still haunt the forests in the east of Ceylon.
1: " ... intactis opulentior Thesauris Arabum, et divitis Indiæ." HORACE.