10 JOURNAL R. A. S CEYLON. [EXTRA NO. 



the woman of the house in which he is lodged prepares his f ood, 

 serves it, and supplies him with provisions for his journey when 

 he goes. In return she is contented to receive from him a very 

 small present. The revenue of the treasury, which is called 

 bender *(eustom-hou&e) consists in the right of buying a certain 

 portion of all cargo on board ship, at a fixed price, whether the 

 commodity be worth just that or more : this is called the bender 

 law. The bender has in each island a house of wood called 

 hedjensar where the governor, the cordouery, {above it is written 

 cordouiy)f collects all such goods : he sells or barters them. 

 The natives buy with chickens any pottery which may be 

 brought : a pot fetches five or six chickens. 



Ships export from the islands the fish of which I have 

 spoken, coconuts, fabrics, the ouliyan and turbans : these last 

 are of cotton. They export also vessels of copper, which are 

 very common there, cowriesj and kanhar^, such is the name of the 



* Bender: — See Pyrard, p. 231, "bandery": cf. Sin. bandhdra. The 

 System of raising revenue here described was still in force in Pyrard's day 

 (Pyrard, chap, xvii.), and seems to be identical in principle with the 'culture 

 system,' employed by the Dutch in Java, where it is supposed to have been 

 invented by one of the Dutch governors subsequent to the English occupation. 

 [Each Atol has its own storehouse ( vdru-ge ) into which the revenues of the 

 Sultan are received, and whence they are transferred from time to time to the 

 Treasury (bodu baderi-ge, cf : S. bhdnddgdrika) at Male. — B.~] 



■f Cordouery, cordouiy : — " The Atol-wari [ Atolu-veri or Vdru-veri ; Pyrard 



1 varuery' ] is a governor or chief of a division of islands called an Atol It 



is his duty to collect the revenue of the Atol, and to transmit it to the Hin- 



deggeree \Hadegiri\ The Rarhu-wari [Rarhu-veri] or headman of an island, 



stands in the same relation to the Atol-wari, as the latter does to the Hindeg- 

 geree, in respect to the revenue." (Trans. Bombay Geo. 1836-8, p. 72). — B. 



% Cowries : — ' Ibn Batuta calls them wada? [Ar.], and the Two Muhamma- 

 dans of the 9th century haptaje: Pyrard,6o% or bollis: Christopher [correctly] 

 doli, cf : S. bella. 



§ Karibar : — Ar. Pyrard has cairo (= T. Jcayiru, Gray.) The proper 

 Maldive term ronu == S. rena. It is hard to believe that u vessels of copper" 

 ever formed one of the genuine exports from the Maldives. A few old copper 

 pots are occasionally sent over to Ceylon for repair.— B, 



