CHAP. L] "CABOOK." 17 



600 feet in height, and upwards of three miles in 

 length, 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. 1 In other localities also the 

 Singhalese priests have taken frequent advantage of the 

 tendency of the gneiss to assume these concentric and 

 almost circular forms; and some of their most venerated 

 temples are to be found under the shadow of the 

 overarching strata, to the imperishable nature of which 

 they point as symbolical of the eternal duration of their 

 faith. 2 



Laterite or " Cabook" A peculiarity, 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. 3 



1 For an account of the temple of by rubies, and nothing can exceed 

 Dambool, see Vol. II. p. 575. I the beauty of the hand-specimens 



2 The concentric lamellar strata | procurable from a quarry close to 

 of the gneiss sometimes extend with j the high road on the landward side ; 

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



be cut from them and used in sub- 

 stitution for beams of timber, and as 

 such they are frequently employed 

 in the construction of Buddhist tem- 

 ples. At Piagalla, on the road be- 

 tween Galle and Colombo, within 

 about four miles of Caltura, there is 

 a gneiss hill of this description on 

 which a temple has been so erected. 

 In this particular rock the garnets 

 usually found in gneiss are replaced 

 VOL. L 



every case reduced to splinters. 



3 According to the Mahmcanso, 

 " Tamba-panni," one of those names 

 by which Ceylon was anciently called, 

 originated in an incident connected 

 with the invasion of Wijayo, B.C. 

 543, whose followers, " exhausted by 

 sea-sickness and faint from weakness, 

 sat down at the spot where they had 

 landed out of the vessels, supporting 

 themselves on the palms of their 



