Chap. I.] " CABOOK." 17 



600 feet in height, and upwards of three miles in 

 lengtli, the town of Kornegalle, one of the ancient 

 capitals of the island, has been built ; and the great 

 temple of Dambool, the most remarkable Buddhist edifice 

 in Ceylon, is constructed under the hollow edge of 

 another, its gilded roof being formed by the inverted 

 arch of the natural stone. The tendency of the gneiss 

 to assume these concentric and almost circular forms 

 has been taken advantage of for tliis purpose by the 

 Singhalese priests, and some of their most venerated 

 temples are to be found under the shadow of the 

 overarching strata, to the imperishable nature of which 

 the priests point as symbolical of the eternal diu'ation of 

 their faith. ^ 



Laterite or " Cahook." — A pecuharity, which is one 

 of the first to strike a stranger who lands at Galle or 

 Colombo, is the bright red colour of the streets and 

 roads, contrasting vividly with the verdure of the trees, 

 and the ubiquity of the fine red dust which penetrates 

 every crevice and imparts its own tint to every 

 neglected article. Natives resident in these localities 

 are easily recognisable elsewhere, by the general hue of 

 their dress. This is occasioned by the prevalence along 

 the western coast of laterite, or, as the Singhalese call 

 it, cabook, a product of disintegrated gneiss, which 

 being subjected to detrition communicates its hue to the 

 soil.^ 



' The concentric lamellar strata < procurable from a quariy close to 



of the g-neiss sometimes extend with ' the high road on the landward side ; 



a radius so prolonged that slabs may i in which, however, the gems are in 



be cut from them and used in sub- i every case reduced to splinters, 



stitution for beams of timber, and as [ ^ According to the Mrihawa/iso, 



such they are frequently employed j " Tamba-panui," one of those names 



in the construction of Buddhist tern- | by which Ceylon was anciently 



pies. At Piagalla, on the road be- I called, originated in an incident 



tween Galle and Colombo, within ' connected with the invasion of 



about four miles of Caltura, there is ; Wijayo, B.C. 543, whose followers, 



a gneiss hill of this description on I " exhausted by sea-sickness and faint 



which a temple has been so erected. I from weakness, sat down at the 



In this particidar rock the garnets spot where they had landed out of 



usually found in gneiss are replaced ' the vessels, suppoi-ting themselves 



by rubies, and nothing can exceed j on the palms of their hands pressed 



the beauty of the hand-specimens | to the gTOimd, whence the name 



VOL. I. C 



