Note Note 1 — CHAP. IV.

—Ceylon is a large and mountainous island of Asia, in the Indian ocean, on the coast of Coromandel. It is about 200 miles in length and 120 in breadth. It produces large quantities of cinnamon and pepper of a superior quality; a great variety of beautiful and useful woods, but one of the most remarkable of its trees is the tallipot, a single leaf of which is large enough to shelter ten persons. It abounds in corn, rice, elephants, buffaloes, goats, hogs, deer, hares, dogs, jackals, monkeys, tigers, and bears. There are also mines, from whence are procured rubies, sapphires, topazes, and other stones of inferior value. The natives of the northern parts of the island are a hardy race, and called Bedas; those on the south, Cinglasses, a people extremely superstitious, worshipping idols of various monstrous forms. They are divided into tribes like the Hindoos; and their language, which is said to be copious, smooth, elegant, and expressive, is now made the medium not of imparting the dogmas of gross superstition alone, but of conveying the light of Revelation to the benighted souls of those remote islanders of the East; the Scriptures being translated into Cingalese and received with grateful avidity by the natives.