Chap. I.] 



SINGHALESE CANOES. 



103 



Arabia, and Persia on the one side, and India, Java, and 

 China on the other, Galle seems to present a combination 

 of every particular essential to determine the problem so 

 long undecided in bibhcal dialectics, and thus to present 

 data for inferring its identity with the Tarsliish of the 

 sacred liistorians, the great eastern mart so long fre- 

 quented by the ships of Tyre and Judea.^ 



Every object that meets the eye on entering the bay is 

 new and strano;e. Amonfifst the vessels at anchor lie the 

 dows of the Ai^abs, the petamars of Malabar, the dlioneys 

 of Coromandel, and the grotesque seaboats of the Maldive 

 and Laccadive islanders. But the most remarkable of all 

 are the double canoes of the Singhalese, wliich dart with 

 surprising velocity amongst the shipping, managed by 

 half-clad natives, who offer for sale beautiful but un- 

 famihar fruits, and fishes of extraordinary colours and 

 fantastic forms. 



These canoes are dissimilar in build, some consisting of 

 two trees lashed together, but the most common and by 



DODELB CANOE OF CETLOK 



far the most graceful are hollowed out of a single stem 

 from eighteen to thirty feet long, and about two feet in 

 depth, exclusive of the wash-board, which adds about a 



' Tlie articles brought by tlie 

 navies of Hiram and Holomon to 

 Ezion-geber, wt;ro carried across the 

 isthmus of Suez to Rliiuocohira, the 



II 4 



modem El-Ari.sli, and tlience trans- 

 ferred into Mediterranean vessels to 

 be can-ied to Joppa , (Jaffa) and 

 Tyre. — Robeetson's Lidia, sec. 1. 



