536 THE XORTHERX FORESTS. [rARX IX. 



builders of tliis little place being amongst the most suc- 

 cessful in Ceylon. As ^xe entered the ^dllage, we passed 

 by a large well under a grove of palms and tamarind- 

 trees, around which, as it was sunset, the females of the 

 place were collected, according to the immemorial custom 

 of the East, " at the time of the evening, even the time 

 that the women o'o out to draw water." In ficcure and 

 carriage, the Tamil women are much supeiior to the 

 Sino^halese. This is shoAvn to advantao'e in their siniju- 

 larly gracefid and classical costume, consisting of a long 

 fold of cloth, enveloping the body below the waist, and 

 brought tastefully over the left shoulder, leaving the right 

 arm and the bosom free. This, together with the custom 

 of carrying vases of water and otlier burdens on their 

 heads, gives them an erect and stately gait, and disposes 

 their hmbs in attitudes so graceful as to render them, 

 when young and finely featured, the most unadorned 

 models for a sculptor. 



The following morning we drove before breakfast to 

 Jaffna, a distance of twenty-one miles, by Achavelle, 

 Potoor, and Copay. Xear Potoor, at a place called Xava- 

 keere, there is a remarkable well, elsewhere aUuded to ^, 

 which is one of the wonders of the peninsula. It occurs 

 in a bed of stratified hmestone, so hollow that in pass- 

 ing over it the footsteps of our horses sounded as 

 though they were striking on an arch. The weU is 

 about thkty feet in diameter, and sinks to a depth of 

 four-and-twenty fathoms. On the surface it is fresh, 

 but lower down it is brackish and salt, and on plunging 

 a bottle to the extreme depth, the water came u]d 

 highly foetid, and giving off bubbles of sulphuretted 



^ See Vol. I. Pt. I. ch. i. p. 21. i seeking to recover Sita. The simi- 



Balb jxs says, p. 723, that the well laritv of this leprend to the act of 



of Potoor was " opened bv a thunder- ' Moses in smiting the rock to procure 



holt." This probably refers to the , water for the Israelites is anotlier of 



native ti-adition, tliat the well was the coincidences which occa^sionally 



opened by Kama by a stroke of his strike us between tlie Scripture liis- 



aiTOW, to refresh his followei's, Avhen tories and tlie eastern chronicles. 



