360 NAVIGATION. 



sections. Seamen name the wind by the point of the com- 

 pass /rom which it blows, and the current is always desig- 

 nated by that point of the compass towards which it is pro- 

 ceeding. This westerly current near Ceylon may carry a 

 ship nearer the Maldives than is expedient. If bound for 

 Colombo, having passed through either of the above-men- 

 tioned channels, a direct course may be steered ; and in 

 clear weather Adam's Peak, a very high-peaked mountam 

 about thirty miles to the eastward of Colombo, will be 

 fist seen, and is sometimes visible at thirty leagues' dis- 

 tance. A ship may anchor off the town in six or seven 

 fathoms, with the flag-staff on the fort bearing south-by- 

 east. Colombo is in lat. 6° 57' north, long. 80° east, and 

 is the seat of government. The cinnamon plantations are 

 in the neighbourhood, and it is a remarkable fact that the 

 odour of cinnamon is smelt at a great distance off-shore iu 

 passing Ceylon ; so that 



" The spicy gales of Araby the Blest" 



are not necessarily mere poetical fictions. 



Point de Galle is another settlement towards which a 

 direct course may be steered. The flag-staff is situated in 

 lat. 6° 1' north, long. 80'^ 20' east. Large ships anchor in 

 the roads, in sixteen or eighteen fathoms, with the flag- 

 staff bearing about north-north-east, two miles off the town. 

 The inner harbour requires a pilot, the outer roadstead is 

 jiot safe in the south-west monsoon. There is a high 

 conical mountain, which is very conspicuous from the offing. 

 The land to the westward is generally low, with cocoanut 

 trees fronting the sea, but the land rises in high moun- 

 tainous ridges to the north-east of Point de Galle. There 

 are many dangers on the coast of Ceylon, between Point 

 de Galle and Trincomalee. The Euphrates, honourable 

 company's ship, was lost by making too free with the shore 

 near Dondre Head, which is a low bluff point, being the 

 southernmost land of Ceylon. If bound for Trincomalee, 

 or the southern part of the Coromandel coast, it is advisable 

 to fell in with the land hereabouts in the south-west mon- 

 soon ; and great caution is required in proceeding to the 

 northward to avoid the Great and I^ittle Basses. It seems 

 advisable at all times to pass outside of them ; they consist 

 «f two dangerous ledges of rocks, the highest being just 



