CHAPTER XXn. 



THE NORTHERN PROVINCE. 



Trip to Jaffna. — The Paumben Passage. — Jaffna. — Coral Gathering. — The 

 Beauties of Living Coral.— Shallow Waters. — A Harvest of Cartilaginous 

 Pishes. — Rldnohati. — Large Rays. — A Handsome Shark. — A Rare and Cu- 

 rious Fish. — Rhampliobatui ancylostomus Described. — Sea Turtles. — Ques- 

 tionable Value of Native Help.— Start for Mullaitivu.— Jaffna to Point 

 Pedro. —The most Northern Point of Ceylon. — Native Cussedness again. — 

 The Slowest Sailing-Craft on Record. 



On February loth, I embarked %vith my outfit and a Singhalese 

 servant named Henrique, a necessai-y evil, on the little colonial 

 steamer Serendib to go to Jaffna, near the northwestern extremity of 

 Ceylon. It was my intention to make a short stay there, and then • 

 work my way down the noi-thern coast, toward Trincomalee, until I 

 found good collecting ground. We left Colombo harbor at 5 p.m. 

 and early the next morning, sighted a low-lying strip of sand re- 

 lieved from utter barrenness by a few green shrubs and Palmyra 

 palms. This was the island of Ramisserama, and we very soon 

 dropped anchor at the mouth of a shallow strait which separates 

 the island from the mainland of India. The Paumben passage — or 

 river, as it is sometimes called by the natives — is a narrow breach 

 a hundred yards wide through a ledge of soft sandstone which 

 extends east and west from the island of Eamisserama to the oppo- 

 site promontory on the continent of India, east of Eamnad. It is 

 said that at one time the island formed a part of the mainland, and 

 pilgi-ims passed over it dry shod, but that during many violent 

 storms the sea broke over the chain of rocks at Paumben, and 

 finally a channel was formed which has gradually deepened ever 

 since. 



There is only eighteen feet of water at high tide even now, and 

 part of this depth was obtained by dredging. Small as the Seren- 

 dib is, she has to wait for the flood tide in order to pass through. 

 One of the most singular facts in the geographical distribution of 



