NO. 49. — 1898.] DUTCH MONUMENTAL REMAINS. 



213 



MONUMENTAL REMAINS OF THE DUTCH EAST INDIA 

 COMPANY IN CEYLON.* 



By F. H. de Vos, Barrister-at-Law. 



The title of this Paper has been suggested by that very 

 interesting work entitled The Monumental Remains of the 

 Dutch East India Company in the Presidency of Madras , 

 by Alexander Rea, published by the Government of India. 



In Ceylon, as in India, these remains consist in the main 

 of tombstones, many of which have coats of arms engraved 

 on them. To merely collect epitaphs and publish them with 

 their translations, although useful in its way, will not, how- 

 ever, be doing justice to the subject, and I have therefore 

 decided to treat the matter more fully from a genealogical 

 and heraldic point of view. Before I proceed to discuss 

 these tombstones, it is necessary that I should make a 

 few prefatory observations of a general nature. 



It should be noted that in the coats of arms on the tomb- 

 stones in Ceylon the colours are rarely indicated. Sometimes 

 we find the impalements and quarterings reversed, due to 

 the engraver copying from a seal and not from its impression. 

 That some animals are shown contourne is also due to this 

 cause. The stonecutters in the Dutch times had doubtless 

 in most cases to rely on the recollection of parties for 

 descriptions of their coats of arms. Hence it is that, in some 

 instances, the charges are scarcely recognizable. Arms were 



* See paragraph 4, page 209, ante. It was decided that this Paper be 

 printed, but not read, 



28—98 K 



