CiiAr. IV.] THE SALT LAKES. 475 



water, and poclied by wild elephants into deep holes, 

 that rendered riding dangerous. It was covered with 

 myriads of wild fowl — flamingoes, white paddy birds, 

 wild ducks, curlews, snipe, and a varied multitude of 

 others. 



The salt lake, or leway of Panetjen-Kerny, is a very 

 remarkable spot. Tradition says that it was once the 

 site of a royal residence ; the district surrounding it 

 having being submerged by irruptions of the sea, which 

 never thorouglily retired, but left behind the present 

 lake, and the vast sahne marshes from which the whole 

 district now derives its supply of salt. The leway itself 

 is six miles in length by three broad, and is capable of 

 yielding ten thousand bushels of salt in tlie season for 

 collection. It is a wild and desolate spot, and exliibits 

 apparent traces of some such calamity as the legend 

 records. 



The country retains more or less the same dreary 

 character from the Natoor river to the Yergel, tlie branch 

 of the MahaweUi-ganga before alluded to \ which here 

 separates the revenue district of Batticaloa from that 

 of Trincomalie. As we approached towards the north, 

 the forests became more frequent ; but where we crossed 

 the Vergel the river traverses a rich alluvial plain, culti- 

 vated with rice, and studded occasionally witli prosperous 

 villages. Tliis stream is one of the deepest and most 

 dangerous in Ceylon, and the soil through which it flows 

 being loose and alluvial, it has hollowed out its ciiannel 

 to such a depth, that the banks stand liigh, and almost 

 perpendicular on either side, so that we were obliged to 

 cut a sloping pathway, doAvn wliicli our horses scrambled 

 to pass the stream. 



Our elephants were reluctant to cross ; and our 

 horses, equally frightened at the rapidity of its ciurent, 

 required some violence to force them down the bank, 

 and as they swam with difficulty after the canoe, two 



» See Vol. II. Pt. IX. cli. ii. p. 424. 



