Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History Part 2

[Footnote 1: _Oriental Monachism,_ 8vo. London, 1850; and _A Manual of Buddhism,_ 8vo. London, 1853]

In like manner I have had the advantage of communicating with MR. COOLEY (author of the _History of Maritime and Inland Discovery_) in relation to the _Mediaeval History_ of Ceylon, and the period embraced by the narrative of the Greek, Arabian, and Italian travellers, between the fifth and fifteenth centuries.

I have elsewhere recorded my obligations to Mr. WYLIE, and to his colleague, Mr. LOCKHART of Shanghae, for the materials of one of the most curious chapters of my work, that which treats of the knowledge of Ceylon possessed by the Chinese in the Middle Ages. This is a field which, so far as I know, is untouched by any previous writer on Ceylon.

In the course of my inquires, finding that Ceylon had been, from the remotest times, the point at which the merchant fleets from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf met those from China and the Oriental Archipelago; thus effecting an exchange of merchandise from East and West; and discovering that the Arabian and Persian voyagers, on their return, had brought home copious accounts of the island, it occurred to me that the Chinese travellers during the same period had in all probability been equally observant and communicative, and that the results of their experience might be found in Chinese works of the Middle Ages. Acting on this conjecture, I addressed myself to a Chinese gentleman, w.a.n.g TAO CHUNG, who was then in England; and he, on his return to Shanghae, made known my wishes to Mr. WYLIE. My antic.i.p.ations were more than realised by Mr. WYLIE'S researches. I received in due course, extracts from upwards of twenty works by Chinese writers, between the fifth and fifteenth centuries, and the curious and interesting facts contained in them are embodied in the chapter devoted to that particular subject. In addition to these, the courtesy of M. STANISLAS JULIEN, the eminent French Sinologue, has laid me under a similar obligation for access to unpublished pa.s.sages relative to Ceylon, in his translation of the great work of HIOUEN THSANG; in his translation of the great work of HIOUEN THSANG; descriptive of the Buddhist country of India in the seventh century.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Memoires sur les Contrees Occidentales_, traduites du Sanscrit en Chinois, en l'an 648, par M. STANISLAS JULIEN.]

It is with pain that I advert to that portion of the section which treats of the British rule in Ceylon; in the course of which the discovery of the private correspondence of the first Governor, Mr.

North, deposited along with the Wellesley Ma.n.u.scripts, in the British Museum[1], has thrown an unexpected light over the fearful events of 1803, and the ma.s.sacre of the English troops then in garrison at Kandy.

Hitherto the honour of the British Government has been unimpeached in these dark transactions; and the slaughter of the troops has been uniformly denounced as an evidence of the treacherous and "tiger-like"

spirit of the Kandyan people.[2] But it is not possible now to read the narrative of these events, as the motives and secret arrangements of the Governor with the treacherous Minister of the king are disclosed in the private letters of Mr. North to the Governor-general of India, without feeling that the sudden destruction of Major Davie's party, however revolting the remorseless butchery by which it was achieved, may have been but the consummation of a revenge provoked by the discovery of the treason concocted by the Adigar in confederacy with the representative of the British Crown. Nor is this construction weakened by the fact, that no immediate vengeance was exacted by the Governor in expiation of that fearful tragedy; and that the private letters of Mr. North to the Marquis of Wellesley contain avowals of ineffectual efforts to hush up the affair, and to obtain a clumsy compromise by inducing the Kandyan king to make an admission of regret.

[Footnote 1: Additional MSS., Brit. Mus., No. 13864, &c.]

[Footnote 2: DE QUINCEY, _collected Works_, vol. xii. p. 14.]

I am aware that there are pa.s.sages in the following pages containing statements that occur more than once in the course of the work. But I found that in dealing with so many distinct subjects the same fact became sometimes an indispensable ill.u.s.tration of more than one topic; and hence repet.i.tion was unavoidable even at the risk of tautology.

I have also to apologise for variances in the spelling of proper names, both of places and individuals, occurring in different pa.s.sages. In extenuation of this, I can only plead the difficulty of preserving uniformity in matters dependent upon mere sound, and unsettled by any recognised standard of orthography.

I have endeavoured in every instance to append references to other authors, in support of statements which I have drawn from previous writers; an arrangement rendered essential by the numerous instances in which errors, that nothing short of the original authorities can suffice to expose, have been reproduced and repeated by successive writers on Ceylon.

To whatever extent the preparation of this work may have fallen short of its conception, and whatever its demerits in execution and style, I am not without hope that it will still exhibit evidence that by perseverance and research I have laboured to render it worthy of the subject.

JAMES EMERSON TENNENT.

LONDON: _July 13th, 1859._

PART I.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER I

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.--GEOLOGY.--MINERALOGY.--GEMS, CLIMATE, ETC.

GENERAL ASPECT.--Ceylon, from whatever direction it is approached, unfolds a scene of loveliness and grandeur unsurpa.s.sed, if it be rivalled, by any land in the universe. The traveller from Bengal, leaving behind the melancholy delta of the Ganges and the torrid coast of Coromandel; or the adventurer from Europe, recently inured to the sands of Egypt and the scorched headlands of Arabia, is alike entranced by the vision of beauty which expands before him as the island rises from the sea, its lofty mountains covered by luxuriant forests, and its sh.o.r.es, till they meet the ripple of the waves, bright with the foliage of perpetual spring.

The Brahmans designated it by the epithet of "the resplendent," and in their dreamy rhapsodies extolled it as the region of mystery and sublimity[1]; the Buddhist poets gracefully apostrophised it as "a pearl upon the brow of India;" the Chinese knew it as the "island of jewels;"

the Greeks as the "land of the hyacinth and the ruby;" the Mahometans, in the intensity of their delight, a.s.signed it to the exiled parents of mankind as a new elysium to console them for the loss of Paradise; and the early navigators of Europe, as they returned dazzled with its gems, and laden with its costly spices, propagated the fable that far to seaward the very breeze that blew from it was redolent of perfume.[2] In later and less imaginative times, Ceylon has still maintained the renown of its attractions, and exhibits in all its varied charms "the highest conceivable development of Indian nature."[3]

[Footnote 1: "Ils en ont fait une espece de paradis, et se sont imagine que des etres d'une nature angelique les habitaient."--ALBYROUNI, Traite des eres, &c.; REINAUD, Geographie d'Aboulfeda, Introd. sec. iii. p.

ccxxiv. The renown of Ceylon as it reached Europe in the seventeenth century is thus summed up by PURCHAS in _His Pilgrimage_, b.v.c. 18, p.

550:--"The heauens with their dewes, the ayre with a pleasant holesomenesse and fragrant freshnesse, the waters in their many riuers and fountaines, the earth diuersified in aspiring hills, lowly vales, equall and indifferent plaines, filled in her inward chambers with mettalls and jewells, in her outward court and vpper face stored with whole woods of the best cinnamons that the sunne seeth; besides fruits, oranges, lemons, &c. surmounting those of Spaine; fowles and beasts, both tame and wilde (among which is their elephant honoured by a naturall acknowledgement of excellence of all other elephants in the world). These all have conspired and joined in common league to present unto Zeilan the chiefe of worldly treasures and pleasures, with a long and healthfull life in the inhabitants to enjoye them. No marvell, then, if sense and sensualitie have heere stumbled on a paradise."]

[Footnote 2: The fable of the "spicy breezes" said to blow from Arabia and India, is as old as Ctesias; and is eagerly repeated by Pliny? lib.

xii. c. 42. The Greeks borrowed the tale from the Hindus, who believe that the _Chandana_ or sandal-wood imparts its odours to the winds; and their poete speak of the Malayan as the westerns did of the Sabaean breezes. But the allusion to such perfumed winds was a trope common to all the discoverers of unknown lands: the companions of Columbus ascribed them to the region of the Antilles; and Verrazani and Sir Walter Raleigh scented them off the coast of Carolina. Milton borrowed from Diodorus Siculus, lib. iii. c. 46, the statement that:

"Far off at sea north-east winds blow Sabaean odours from the spicy sh.o.r.e Of Araby the Blest."

(_P.L._ iv. 163.)

Ariosto employs the same imaginative embellishment to describe the charms of Cyprus:

"Serpillo e persa e rose e gigli e croco Spargon dall'odorifero terreno Tanta suavita, ch'in mar sentire La fa ogni vento che da terra spire."

(_Oil. Fur._ xviii. 138.)

That some aromatic smell is perceptible far to seaward, in the vicinity of certain tropical countries, is unquestionable; and in the instance of Cuba, an odour like that of violets, which is discernible two or three miles from land, when the wind is off the sh.o.r.e, has been traced by Poeppig to a species of _Tetracera_, a climbing plant which diffuses its odour during the night. But in the case of Ceylon? if the existence of such a perfume be not altogether imaginary, the fact has been falsified by identifying the alleged fragrance with cinnamon; the truth being that the cinnamon laurel, unless it be crushed, exhales no aroma whatever; and the peculiar odour of the spice is only perceptible after the bark has been separated and dried.]

[Footnote 3: La.s.sEN, _Indische Alterthumskunde_ vol. i. p. 198.]

_Picturesque Outline_.--The nucleus of its mountain ma.s.ses consists of gneissic, granitic, and other crystalline rocks, which in their resistless upheaval have rent the superinc.u.mbent strata, raising them into lofty pyramids and crags, or hurling them in gigantic fragments to the plains below. Time and decay are slow in their a.s.saults on these towering precipices and splintered pinnacles; and from the absence of more perishable materials, there are few graceful sweeps along the higher chains or rolling downs in the lower ranges of the hills. Every bold elevation is crowned by battlemented cliffs, and flanked by chasms in which the shattered strata are seen as sharp and as rugged as if they had but recently undergone the grand convulsion that displaced them.

_Foliage and Verdure_.--The soil in these regions is consequently light and unremunerative, but the plentiful moisture arising from the interception of every pa.s.sing vapour from the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, added to the intense warmth of the atmosphere, combine to force a vegetation so rich and luxuriant, that imagination can picture nothing more wondrous and charming; every level spot is enamelled with verdure, forests of never-fading bloom cover mountain and valley; flowers of the brightest hues grow in profusion over the plains, and delicate climbing plants, rooted in the shelving rocks, hang in huge festoons down the edge of every precipice.

Unlike the forests of Europe, in which the excess of some peculiar trees imparts a character of monotony and graveness to the outline and colouring, the forests of Ceylon are singularly attractive from the endless variety of their foliage, and the vivid contrast of its hues.

The mountains, especially those looking towards the east and south, rise abruptly to prodigious and almost precipitous heights above the level plains; the rivers wind through woods below like threads of silver through green embroidery, till they are lost in a dim haze which conceals the far horizon; and through this a line of tremulous light marks where the sunbeams are glittering among the waves upon the distant sh.o.r.e.

From age to age a scene so lovely has imparted a colouring of romance to the adventures of the seamen who, in the eagerness of commerce, swept round the sh.o.r.es of India, to bring back the pearls and precious stones, the cinnamon and odours, of Ceylon. The tales of the Arabians are fraught with the wonders of "Serendib;" and the mariners of the Persian Gulf have left a record of their delight in reaching the calm havens of the island, and reposing for months together in valleys where the waters of the sea were overshadowed by woods, and the gardens were blooming in perennial summer.[1]

[Footnote 1: REINAUD, _Relation des Voyages Arabes, &c., dans le neuvieme siecle_. Paris, 1845, tom. ii. p. 129.]

_Geographical Position_.--Notwithstanding the fact that the Hindus, in their system of the universe, had given prominent importance to Ceylon, their first meridian, "the meridian of Lanka," being supposed to pa.s.s over the island, they propounded the most extravagant ideas, both as to its position and extent; expanding it to the proportions of a continent, and at the same time placing it a considerable distance south-east of India.[1]

[Footnote 1: For a condensed account of the dimensions and position attributed to Lanka, in the Mythic Astronomy of the Hindus, see REINAUD's _Introduction to Aboulfeda_, sec. iii. p. ccxvii., and his _Memoire sur l'Inde_, p. 342; WILFORD's _Essay on the Sacred Isles of the West_, Asiat. Researches, vol. x, p. 140.]

The native Buddhist historians, unable to confirm the exaggerations of the Brahmans, and yet reluctant to detract from the epic renown of their country by disclaiming its stupendous dimensions, attempted to reconcile its actual extent with the fables of the eastern astronomers by imputing to the agency of earthquakes the submersion of vast regions by the sea.[1] But evidence is wanting to corroborate the a.s.sertion of such an occurrence, at least within the historic period; no record of it exists in the earliest writings of the Hindus, the Arabians, or Persians; who, had the tradition survived, would eagerly have chronicled a catastrophe so appalling.[2] Geologic a.n.a.logy, so far as an inference is derivable from the formation of the adjoining coasts, both of India and Ceylon, is opposed to its probability; and not only plants, but animals, mammalia, birds, reptiles, and insects, exist in Ceylon, which are not to be found in the flora or fauna of the Indian continent.[3]

[Footnote 1: SIR WILLIAM JONES adopted the legendary opinion that Ceylon "formerly perhaps, extended much farther to the west and south, so as to include Lanka or the equinoctial point of the Indian astronomers."--_Discourse on the Inst.i.tution of a Society for inquiring into the History, &c., of the Borderers, Mountaineers, and Islanders of Asia_.--Works, vol. i. p. 120.

The Portuguese, on their arrival in Ceylon in the sixteenth century, found the natives fully impressed by the traditions of its former extent and partial submersion; and their belief in connection with it, will be found in the narratives and histories of De Barros and Diogo de Couto, from which they have been transferred, almost without abridgment, to the pages of Valentyn. The substance of the native legends will be found in the _Mahawanso_, c. xxii. p. 131; and _Rajavali_, p. 180, 190.]

[Footnote 2: The first disturbance of the coast by which Ceylon is alleged to have been severed from the main land is said by the Buddhists to have taken place B.C. 2387; a second commotion is ascribed to the age of Panduwaasa, B.C. 504; and the subsidence of the sh.o.r.e adjacent to Colombo is said to have taken place 200 years later, in the reign of Devenipiatissa, B.C. 306. The event is thus recorded in the _Rajavali_, one of the sacred books of Ceylon:--"In these days the sea was seven leagues from Kalany; but on account of what had been done to the teeroonansee (a priest who had been tortured by the king of Kalany), the G.o.ds who were charged with the conservation of Ceylon, became enraged and caused the sea to deluge the land; and as during the epoch called _duwapawrayaga_ on account of the wickedness of Rawana, 25 palaces and 400,000 streets were all over-run by the sea, so now in this time of Tissa Raja, 100,000 large towns, 910 fishers' villages, and 400 villages inhabited by pearl fishers, making together eleven-twelfths of the territory of Kalany, were swallowed up by the sea."--_Rajavali_, vol.

ii. p. 180, 190.

FORBES observes the coincidence that the legend of the rising of the sea in the age of Panduwaasa, 2378 B.C., very nearly concurs with the date a.s.signed to the Deluge of Noah, 2348,--_Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol.

ii. p. 258. A tradition is also extant, that a submersion took place at a remote period on the east coast of Ceylon, whereby the island of Giri-dipo, which is mentioned in the first chapter of the _Mahawanso_, was engulfed, and the dangerous rocks called the Great and Little Ba.s.ses are believed to be remnants of it.--_Mahawanso_, c. i.

A _resume_ of the disquisitions which have appeared at various times as to the submersion of a part of Ceylon, will be found in a Memoir _sur la Geographie ancienne de Ceylon_, in the Journal Asiatique for January, 1857, 5th ser., vol. ix. p. 12; see also TURNOUR'S _Introd. to the Mahawanso_, p. x.x.xiv.]

[Footnote 3: Some of the mammalia peculiar to the island are enumerated at p. 160; birds found in Ceylon but not existing in India are alluded to at p. 178, and Dr. A. GuNTHER, in a paper on the _Geographical Distribution of Reptiles_, in the _Mag. of Nat. Hist._ for March, 1859, says, "amongst these larger islands which are connected with the middle palaeotropical region, none offers forms so different from the continent and other islands as Ceylon. It might be considered the Madagascar of the Indian region. We not only find there peculiar genera and species, not again to be recognised in other parts; but even many of the common species exhibit such remarkable varieties, as to afford ample means for creating new nominal species," p. 280. The difference exhibited between the insects of Ceylon and those of Hindustan and the Dekkan are noticed by Mr. Walker in the present work, p. ii. ch. vii, vol. i. p. 270. See on this subject RITTER'S _Erdkunde_, vol. iv. p. 17.]

Still in the infancy of geographical knowledge, and before Ceylon had been circ.u.mnavigated by Europeans, the mythical delusions of the Hindus were transmitted to the West, and the dimensions of the island were expanded till its southern extremity fell below the equator, and its breadth was prolonged till it touched alike on Africa and China.[1]

[Footnote 1: GIBBON, ch. xxiv.]