CiiAr. II.] 



PUTIAM. 



C'27 



with crocodiles. The country around Aripo is still 

 cultivated by industrious Tamils, descendants of a race 

 who had estabhshed themselves there at a time when 

 the Dutch had a garrison at Aripo for the protection of 

 the pearl banks. Such was the abundance of provisions 

 at that time, that Valentyn says an ox could be piu'- 

 chased for half a rix-doUar.^ 



For coolness as well as convenience, the road from 

 Aripo to Putlam keeps close to the sea as far as Kud- 

 ramahe, a head-land whose name, "the mountain of the 

 horse," assists to identify it Avith the Hippurus or Ilip- 

 poros at which (according to Phny) the freedman of 

 Annius Plocamus landed, whose visit to Ceylon led to 

 the embassy despatched from the sovereign to the 

 Emperor Claudius.^ 



The most interesting object in Putlam at the time of 

 my visit was a Baobab tree^ that stood near the Moor- 

 ish bm^ying-ground, and although but seventy feet high, 

 was then forty-six feet in circumference. A very few 

 years afterwards it was overthrown and destroyed, during 

 the deepening of a well situated close to its roots. 



Putlam* was probably the place at which Wijayo dis- 

 embarked with his followers to undertake the conquest 

 of Ceylon ; and in 1839, the ruins of Tamana-Neuera, 

 the city where he estabhshed his residence'^, were dis- 

 covered in the forest about ten miles from the sea. It 

 was the '■'- Battala" at which Il^n Batuta landed in 1327." 



^ Oud em Nieuto Oost-Inclien, ch. i. 

 p. 28. 



^ Flint, lib. vi. c. xxii. Kudramaltl 

 still retains traces of its having- been 

 a place of importance at a very re- 

 mote period. Its association with the 

 horse may possibly be referable to a 

 Hindu origin, the horse being the 

 emblem of one of the great rivers 

 fabled to flow from the sacred lake 

 of Anotattho, in the mj'thical region 

 of the IlimaLaya. Tlie lioi-se figures 

 amongst the ancient stone carA'ings 

 at Anarajapoora, along with the 

 elephant and the cow, and the legend 



of the hoi-se is associated with Malia- 

 vitta-puram in the peninsula of 

 Jaffna. 



^ Adansonia dujiiata. 



^ Putlam was called by the Portu- 

 guese, P(»ialoon. 



^ Jiajaratnacari, p. 27 ; Rajavali, 

 p. 168 ; 3IuJi(iwcmso, ch. vii. p. 47. 

 An account of the ruins of Taniana 

 Neuera wa.s communicated by Casie 

 Chittt to the Royal Asiatic Society 

 in 1841, and published in their 

 Journal, vol. vi. p. 242. 



6 See ante, Vo\ I, Pt. v. clu ii. 

 p. 330. 



s s 2 



