442 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL AETS. 



[Part IV. 



stance exists of a native ship, owned, built, or manned by 

 Singhalese. 



The boats which are in use at the present day, and 

 which differ materially in build at different parts of the 

 island, appear to have been all copied from models 

 supphed by other countries. In the south the curious 

 canoes, which attract the eye of the stranger arriving at 

 Point de Galle by their balance-log and outrigger, were 

 borrowed from the islanders of the Eastern Archipelago ; 

 the more substantial canoe called a ballam, which 

 is found in the estuaries and shallow lakes around 

 the northern shore, is imitated from one of similar form 

 on the Malabar coast ; and the catamaran is common 

 to Ceylon and Coromandel. The awkward dhoneys, 

 built at Jaffna, and manned by Tamils, are imitated 

 from those at Madras ; while the Singhalese dhoney, 

 south of Colombo, is but an enlargement of the Galle 

 canoe with its outrigger, so clumsily constructed that the 

 gunwale is frequently topped by a line of wicker-work 

 smeared with clay, to protect the deck from the wash of 

 the sea.^ 



One pccuharity in the mode of constructing the 

 native shipping of Ceylon existed in the remotest times, 

 and is retained to the present day. The practice is 

 closely coimected with one of the most imaginative 

 incidents in the mediteval romances of the East. 

 Their boats and canoes, hke those of tlie Arabs and 

 other early navigators who crept along the shores of 

 India, are put together without the use of iron nails ^, 

 the planks being secured by wooden bolts, and stitched 

 together with cords spun from the fibre of the coco- 



^ The gunwale of the boat of 

 Ulysses was raised by hurdles of 

 osiers to keep oil' the waves. 



$pa4'f Se fxiv fViTtKyai ^lajXTTipiQ olavhnjai 



ILl'jJiaTOQ lVK(ip tjllP' TToWip' (5' tTTl- 



XivctTo vX)]}'. 0(1. V. 256. 



2 DelatjeieR; Etudes sur la " Re- 



lation lies voyages faits par les Arahes 

 et Ics Persans dans Vlnde." Journ. 

 Asiat. torn. xlix. p. 137. See also 

 Malte Beun, Hist, de G6o(/r. torn. i. p. 

 409, with the references to the Peri- 

 plus Mar. Erythr., Strabo, Procopius, 

 &c. GiBBON; Decl. and Fall, vol. v. 

 ch. xl. 



