United States or Kosovo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


This explanation agrees with the expressions of Seneca and St Jerome. Churchills Collection, V. 591. All that has been attempted in the present article is to soften the asperity of the language, and to illustrate the text by a few notes where these seemed necessary. Trapobana, or rather Taprobana, is assuredly Ceylon, not Sumatra.

"What shall we do," replied Don Quixote, "but assist the weaker and injured side? for know, Sancho, that the army which now moves towards us is commanded by the great Alifanfaron, emperor of the vast island of Taprobana; the other that advances behind us is his enemy, the king of the Garamantians, Pentapolin with the naked arm, so called because he always enters into the battle with his right arm bare."

Riffing, in the Anglo-Saxon. Sermondisc in the Anglo-Saxon, Sarmaticus in Orosius. Rochouasco in Anglo-Saxon, Roxolani in Orosius. Certainly here put for Ireland. Taprobana, Serendib, or Ceylon. By the Red Sea must be here meant that which extends between the peninsula of India and Africa, called the Erithrean Sea in the Periplus of Nearchus.

In my return voyage in 1566, I went from Goa to Malacca in a ship or galleon belonging to the king of Portugal, which was bound for Banda to lade nutmegs and mace. From Goa to Malacca it is 1800 miles. We passed without the island of Ceylon and went through the channel of Nicobar, and then through the channel of Sombrero, past the island of Sumatra, called in old times Taprobana.

Fa-Hian found a party of merchants just preparing to put to sea with the intention of going to Ceylon; he sailed with them, and in fourteen days landed on the shores of the ancient Taprobana, of which the Greek merchant, Jamboulos, had given a curious account some centuries previously.

This is the Taprobana of the ancients, and has received many names. In Cosmas Indicopleustes, it is called Sielendiba, which is merely a Grecian corruption of Sielea-dive, or Sielen island; whence the modern name of Ceylon. This is probably the shark, which is common on all the coasts of India.

After giving a description of the cinnamon and other productions of Zeilam he says he sailed to a great island named Sumatra, called by the ancients Taprobana, where he was detained one year. His account of the pepper-plant, of the durian fruit, and of the extraordinary customs, now well ascertained, of the Batech or Batta people, prove him to have been an intelligent observer.

Ceylon, Serendib, or Taprobana, was divided between two hostile princes; one of whom possessed the mountains, the elephants, and the luminous carbuncle, and the other enjoyed the more solid riches of domestic industry, foreign trade, and the capacious harbor of Trinquemale, which received and dismissed the fleets of the East and West.

Not far from this city is a famous river named Gaza , the largest I ever saw, as it is 25 miles broad, and on the other side of it is seen the very large island of Sumatra, which by old writers was called Taprobana, and which is said by the inhabitants to be 500 miles in circuit . Upon our arrival at Malacca, called by some Melcha, we were commanded to appear before the sultan, who is a Mahometan and tributary to the great sultan of Chini , because as is said the city was built about 80 years before on account of the convenience of its harbour, being one of the best in the ocean, and to which doubtless many ships resort for trade.

"Courage, brave knights!" cried he; "march up, fall on, all you who fight under the standard of the valiant Pentapolin with the naked arm; follow me, and you shall see how easily I will revenge him on that infidel Alifanfaron of Taprobana."