Knox was shipwrecked in 1659 on the island of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka).
He was a captive there for 19 years before escaping & writing a book about his experience.
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At the age of 18, on a voyage to Persia, their ship ran into a storm that destroyed its mast & forced them to beach on the Ceylonese coast.
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However, the stranded sailors were discovered beneath a tamarind tree by a patrolling troop of soldiers loyal to King Rajasinghe II, who ruled Ceylon’s inland Kandyan Kingdom.
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King Rajasinghe was suspicious of the Europeans’ intentions, thinking them spies. He ordered the Knoxes to be held captive along with 16 of their crew.
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Although Knox refused to work for the king, he was still permitted to become a farmer & make a living.
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Many of the captive sailors suffered terribly from malaria. In 1661, after a long illness, Knox’s father died in captivity.
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He was struck by the rich variety of idioms & saying used by the Sinhala people, some of which he noted down.
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“And if he doth not pay, they load him with more Stones, until his compliance prevent further pains.”
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“The Keepers of the Kings Elephants sometimes make a sport with them after this manner. They will command an Elephant to take up water... till they command him to squirt it out at somebody, which he immediately will do”
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They fled the Kandyan Kingdom & succeeded in reaching a Dutch fort on the coast.
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They organised a ship to take Knox home. On the voyage, he feverishly wrote down a book about his time in Ceylon: "An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon".
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It was a major influence on the English novel. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe & the later Captain Singleton both draw on the experiences of Knox, as did Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
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Upon his return, Knox also presented his friend Robert Hooke with samples of “a strange intoxicating herb like hemp” which he dubbed “Indian hemp” or “Bangue“.
The herb was cannabis, & Knox was the first European to describe its effects.
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Today, the tamarind tree under which Knox was captured is a monument.
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After his return to Britain, he returned to sea many times. Before he retired, he made altogether seven trips to the East. He was nearly 80 when he died.
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You can read the whole of Knox’s “Historical Relation” in plaintext on Project Gutenberg: gutenberg.org/files/14346/14…
Or the original text scanned into Google Books if you prefer: books.google.co.uk/books?id=yFpTA…
paulmmcooper.com
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