Chap. II.] 



CALPENTYN. 



CHI LAW. 



629 



shallows, and whose bite they beheve to be fatal. Shells ^ 

 are so abundant on the shore of the bay that they serve 

 to supply the district with hme. The capabihties of 

 Calpentyn were so highly appreciated by the Dutch that, 

 on wresting the peninsula from the Portuguese, they 

 constructed a fort, the buildings of which are in tolerable 

 repair, and introduced the vine, which still flourishes in 

 the peninsula." 



Calpentyn has of late years attained celebrity from a 

 statue of St. Ann, which is said to work miracles, and 

 to whose shrine pilgrims resort in thousands, not Eoman 

 Catholics alone but Mahometans and Hindus, who, 

 without absolute faith in St. Ann, think it polite to be 

 respectful to her representative, whom they address as 

 Hanna Bihi. 



Cliilaw, the Salabham of the Tamils and the Salawat 

 through which Ibn Batuta passed on his way to Adam's 

 Peak, is a place of no great antiquity. It w^as wrested 

 fi'om the king of Ceylon by the Tamils in the fourteenth 

 century^, and though nominally recovered, it was never 

 virtually restored, having been occupied in turn by the 

 Moors, the Portuguese, and Dutch, from the last of Avliom 

 it was taken by the Enghsh in 1796.^ 



From Chilaw to Negombo the road passes through 

 almost continuous coco-nut plantations; and in the 



^ Owing to the profusion of dead 

 shells, the shore at Calpent^Ti is so 

 fi-equeuted by heniiit-crabs, that on 

 approaching their haunts the beach 

 seems all in motion as they hasten to 

 conceal themselves, hiuTjdng to and 

 fi"0, and clashing their shells together 

 in their precipitancy and confusion. 



^ Valentyu, 0ml en Kicmv Ood- 

 Indien, ch. xv. p. 223. 



3 RajavaU, p. 264. 



* The forest to the east of Chilaw 

 contains, wdthin a radius of twenty 

 or thirty miles, the ruins of a num- 

 ber of ancient cities ; amongst otlicrs, 

 Dambedenia, near the Kaymel 

 river, which was the capital of 



Wijayo Bahu III, a.b. 1235; and 

 Yapahoo, north of the Uodroo Ova, 

 where the Court was held from A.D. 

 1301, till its removal to Kornegalle 

 a few years later. Tlie only remains 

 of the former are some finely chi- 

 selled columns amongst momids of 

 gi-ass-grown iiibbish and liidden 

 brickwork. At Yapahoo there are 

 extensive ruins, a dooi-way fourteen 

 feet high, supported by gi-anite pillars 

 caiT^nng an ornamental frieze, and a 

 window admitting the light through 

 apertures perforated in a richly 

 carved entablature, the tracery on 

 which contains figures of the lion 

 and the sacred g-oose. 



s s 3 



