442 



SCIENCES AXD SOCIAL ARTS. 



[PART IV. 



stance exists at the present day, nor so far as I can dis- 

 cover at any former period, 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 taken from models sup- 

 plied by other countries. In the south the curious double 

 canoes, that 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 copied from those 

 at Madras ; while the Singhalese dhoney, south of Co- 

 lombo, 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. 1 



One peculiarity 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 connected with one of the most imaginative 

 incidents in the mediaeval romances of the East. 

 Their boats and canoes, like those of the Arabs and 

 other early navigators who crept along the shores of 

 India, are put together without the use of iron nails 2 , 

 the planks being secured by wooden bolts, and stitched 

 together with cords spun from the fibre of the coco- 



1 The gunwale of the boat of 

 Ulysses was raised by hurdles of 

 osiers to keep off the waves. 



il\ap ifji 

 ro vXjjr. 



iroXXi'iv S' iiri 

 Od. \. 250. 



2 DELATTKIER, Etudes sur la " Ee- 



Id t ion dcs voyages faits par les Arabes 

 et les Persons dans Flnde" Journ. 

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

 MALTE Bsrx, Hist, de Geogr. torn. i. p. 

 409, with the references to the Pen- 

 plus Mar. Erythr., Strabo, Procopius, 

 &C. GIBBON, DecL and Fall, vol. v. 

 ch. xl. 



