GOO 



THE RUIXED CITIES. 



[Part X. 



shade of the pahns one hears the creaking of the pri- 

 mitive mills, which, from time immemorial, have been 

 used by the natives for expressing the oil. Under a 

 large banyan-tree on the side of the highway, near the 

 village of Madampe, is an altar to Tannavilla Abhaya, 

 a chief who, in the fourteenth centiu-y, ruled over the 

 district, under the title of king of Madampe. He died 

 by his own hand ; but, in gratitude for his ser\dces, his 

 subjects celebrated his apotheosis, and the people now 

 worship him as the tutelary deity of the place. 



JSTegombo, although, according to Burnouf, its name, 

 Naga-houli, would imply that it was the "land of the 

 serpent worshippers" (Nagasy, was a place of no im- 

 portance till the Portuguese took possession of it as a 

 sanitary station, and erected a small enclosure defended 

 by five guns, under the command of a captain, Avith a 

 few soldiers and a chaplain.^ The Dutch, struck with 

 the commercial value of the district, and its adaptability 

 for the growth of cinnamon, converted the stockade 

 into a fortress with four batteries, for the protection 

 of the Chahas in their employment.^ The residt justified 

 their foresight, and Valentyn pronounces that the cinnamon 

 grown at Negombo was "the best in the known world, as 

 well as the most abundant." ^ 



The encomium was not misplaced ; and, so long as 

 the finest quahties of the spice were in demand, the 

 specimens grown at Kaderani commanded the highest 

 prices. Of late years, however, the enterprise has been 

 less remunerative, and the cultivation of coco-nuts has 

 superseded that of cinnamon. The town still retains 

 its external aspect of importance; the fort, though no 

 longer garrisoned, is in effective repair, and the wln'te 



^ Journal Asiatiqiie, torn. \m. p. 

 134. The ordinary derivation of 

 Negonibo is, however, Mi-tjamoa, 

 the " viUage of bees." 



2 IIaafnee, Voyages, S^-c, torn. i. 

 p. 8()8 ; RlREYEO, p. i, ch. xii. 



* Valentyn, Oml en Nieim Oost- 

 Ind'ien, ch. xiii. p. 20. 



^ Ihkl, p. 1G6. See ante, Vol. I. 

 rt. V. ch. ii. 



