a54 



ISLAND OF CEYLON. 



-and three hundred wounded. In officers we fuffered feverely. 

 The captains hnmlcv^ Watty and Wood fell in the a<5lion. The 

 lofs of the French was enormous. Four himdred and twelve 

 men were killed, and fix hundred and feventy-fix were wound- 

 ed. The carnage on board the gallant Suffrein\ fliip, the HcrOt 

 was unheard in any fight of any age, it was an unparalleled car- 

 nage. Many of the French captains had behaved ill, fix were 

 broke, and fent prifoners to the illand of Mauritius ; and thus 

 ended the unavailing {laughters in the Indian feas. 

 The Ganges of Ptolemy runs into this harbour. 



Barticalo. Barticalo is the next port, lying in Lat. 7° 40'. This alfo has 



a ftrong fortrefs. Here the Dutch firft landed in 1638, and took 

 it by capitulation from the Portuguefe. The mountain, the 

 Monk^s-hoody fome leagues inland, is a remarkable fea mark. 

 Barticalo may have been near the fite of the town called by 

 Ptolemy, Bocona ; near it is a river which preferves the name, 

 being called by the natives Ko-bokan-oycy or the river of 

 Bokan *. 



From the mouth of Kobakan river, the land trends to the 

 fouth-weft. Nothing remarkable occurs till we reach Malawe\ 

 between that place and Tangala, is a large plain, thirty miles in 

 circumference, noted for the chace of elephants ; their antient 

 place of embarkation, the Geyrreiveys of Elypbants van plaets, 

 is a little farther to the weft. 



Matura. a little more to the weft is Matura, where the Dutch have 



a ftrong fortrefs ; their policy is only to fortify the ports. 



* D'Anviile, Aiitiqurte de I'lnde, p. 146. 



Bondra^ 



