NOTES. 213 



" Vanni Manual," pp. 19-63.) The tradition is that after the fight 

 the arms of the defeated Sinhalese (for they were chiefly Sinhalese 

 of Nuwarakalawiya) were piled under this tree. I had it measured 

 the other day ; the trunk was 21 feet in girth, 4 feet from the 

 ground, so that it is 10 feet less than BaldaBus's tree. There is no 

 doubt that this tree was in existence 102 years ago, and in all 

 probability it was even then a large tree. Native opinion is that a 

 tamarind tree may live two or three hundred years. I have seen 

 very large trees in the Vanni, and they always indicate the sites of 

 abandoned villages — villages abandoned perhaps 100 years ago or 

 more. 



The Park. Jaffna. J. P. LEWIS. 



2. The Moormen's Weapon. — I annex a photograph of a curious 

 kind of dagger with its wooden sheath from the collection of the 

 late Mr. R. W. levers, C.M.G., C.C.S., which has been acquired 

 for the Museum. It is known as a samusadu or jamijadu, 

 for both forms of the word are used, and it appears to be the dis- 

 tinctive weapon of the Moormen of Ceylon, for a representation 

 of it is one of their brandmarks for cattle. There are two forms of 

 this brandmark given in the paper on "Brandmarks on Cattle," 

 by the late Mr. James de Alwis, published in the Journal of the 

 Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1874 (vol. 

 v., p. 60). In one (No. 51) it is represented as of the shape 

 (fig. 1), which shows that the weapon itself was hardly familiar 

 to the people who used its shape for a brandmark. 



In the other (No. 53), which is given as the brandmark of the 

 Moormen of Chilaw it has become an ordinary dagger (fig. 2), 

 but in the Tangalla District, where I also found it used as a 

 brandmark by the Moormen, the shape was nearer to the original. 

 I met with three forms. 



Here (fig. 3) the idea of a weapon al so seems to have been lost, and 

 this particular brandmark was described to me as tamhu jadiya (a 

 copper jar) into whichthe word samiisao^i^ had been corrupted in 

 the course of time— another proof that the true origin of the mark 

 had been forgotten. The other shapes were known as ulmadah'kit 

 samusadu (samusadu with an inwards bend) (fig. 4), and 

 pera-madakku-samusadu (samusadu with an outwards bend) 

 (fig. 5). 



I do not know where Mr. levers came across this specimen. 

 Possibly specimens of the weapon might be found in India, 



