517 



CHAP. Yl. 



THE PENINSULA OF JAFFNA. — THE PALMYRA PALM. 



From Moeletivoe we turned north-west towards the 

 great trunk road that connects the Kandyan country 

 with Jaffna, and joined it at Kandavelle ; wliere we 

 passed the night in the rest-house. The folloAving day 

 we rode across the shallow sandy gulf that forms the 

 southern boundary of the peninsula, and entered it by 

 the Elephant Pass ; a ford which has acquired its name 

 from being one of the points chosen by the ^vild 

 elephants for their passage from the mainland, at the 

 season when tlie fruit of the pahnp"a palms, wliich 

 abound on the other side of the estuary, is begimiing to 

 ripen.^ 



Close beside the northern shore stands a rest-house, 

 erected from the materials of an old Dutch fort, part of 

 the outer wall of which is still remaining. This and two 

 similar strongholds at short distances across the isthmus 

 at Pass Beschuter ^ and Pass Pyl, were erected by the 



* See post, p. 525. 



2 Professor Lee conjectures that 

 Beschuter may be ideutified with 

 " Buzna," a place which lux Batuta 

 visited ou his way fi'om Gampola to 

 Adam's Peak; and that the name may 

 be derived from the Persian word 

 Buzna, a monkey. (See note to Lee's 

 ti-anslation of the Travels of Um 

 Batuta, p. 187.) But independently 

 of the fact that the " Buzna " of the 

 traveller was on a bend of the Maha- 

 welli-ganga, and had no identifica- 

 tion with .Jaffiia, it is difficult to see 

 how the Persian tenn " buzna " 

 could have been vemaculai" in Ceylon. 



The probability is, that the modem 

 Pass Beschuter obtained its name 

 from the remarkable man ^larcellus 

 de Boschouwer or Boschouder, who, 

 in the beginning of the seventeenth 

 centuiy, played so important a part 

 at the Coiul; of the Emperor of 

 Kandy, by whom he was created 

 Prince of Migone. See ante, Vol. II. 

 Pt. VI. ch. ii. p. 38 ; and in the same 

 manner Pass Pyl, according to Va- 

 LEXTYN, was so Called in honour of 

 Lorenzo Van Pyl, Governor of JafF- 

 napatam, in 1079. " Pas Pyl ter ge- 

 dagtenis van den Landvoogd Pyl." — 

 OudenNiemv Oost-Lulicn, cli. ii. p.30. 



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