Sir A. JoHNSTOi^s Letter relating to the preceding Inscription. 543t 



turbed for nearly eight hundred years, till the Dutch dessave, or collector 

 of Colombo, about forty years ago, removed it, along with some other 

 stones, from the Moorish burying-ground near Colombo, to the spot where 

 he was building a house, and placed it where it now stands, as one of the 

 steps to his house. The English translation of it was made by the Rev. 

 Samuel Lee, A.M., professor of Arabic at Cambridge, who is so celebrated 

 all over Europe for the profound knowledge he possesses of the Hebrew, 

 the Arabic, and other oriental languages. 



I remain, &c. 



To the SecreMry of (Signed) ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. 



the Royal Asiatic Society. 



NOTES. 



(A). One of these passages, called the Manar Passage, which separates the island of Manar 

 from the opposite coast of Ceylon near Mantotte, is very narrow, and not above four feet deep 

 at high water. The other, called the Paumbum Passage, separates the island of Ramissarum, 

 celebrated throughout India for its Hindu pagoda, from the opposite coast of the peninsula of 

 India near Tonitorre Point : it is also very narrow, and not above six feet deep at high water. 

 The importance of the first of these passages arises from its being the passage through which 

 all the small vessels trading between the south-west and north-west ports of Ceylon must pass ; 

 the importance of the latter arises from its being the passage through which all the small vessels 

 trading between the coast of Malabar and the coast of Coromandel must pass. From the in- 

 formation which I collected during frequent visits which I paid to the islands of Ramissarum 

 and Manar, I ascertained beyond a doubt that both these passages had been much deeper in 

 ancient times, and that they might again be made deeper without much difficulty. Tlie deepening 

 of these two passages is an object of considerable importance to navigation, and is well 

 worthy of the attention of his Majesty's Ministers and of the Court of Directors of the 

 Honourable East- India Company. 



(B). The chank is the valuta gravis. The principal chank banks belonging to the English 

 Government on Ceylon are situated along the north-west coast of Ceylon, a little to the north- 

 ward of the island of Manar. The divers generally dive for these shells in three or three and a 

 half fathoms water. The quantity of chank shells which are found on these banks is so great, 

 that the government frequently lets the right of fishing for them for one year for sixty thousand 

 Ceylon dollars. Numbers of these shells arc exported from Ceylon to every part of India, 

 but more particularly to Bengal, where they are sawed into rings of different sizes, and worn 

 by the Indian women as an ornament, on their arms, legs, toes, and fingers. As the Hindu 

 natives of India have a religious prejudice in their favour, they are also used in the Hindu 



