No. 57. — 1906.] coconut cultivation. 



6] 



this is the branch of which the poet speaks : Aureus et 

 simili frondescit virga metallo, I say this, because Virgil 

 says of it, that it was the offering of Proserpina : Hoc sibi 

 pulchra suum ferri Proserpina munus instituit. And of 

 these palm trees, which many call royal from the beauty of 

 the colour, but of which the Father Nicolao Paludano, of 

 our Company, who travels about those parts, writes that 

 with more reason they might be called Luceferi?ias, since 

 the fruit is used by the heathen Chingalas only for offering 

 to the devil." 



There is also a reference by this Jesuit priest to " Canals" 

 — forty years before the arrival of the Dutch — which is 

 worth quoting, though of no bearing on our immediate 

 subject : — 



" Near Columbo the Fathers embarked on a canal* by 

 which they entered into the river Calene, and going down 

 the river they proceeded into another canal as narrow as 

 shady, so that the oars, although they were very short, could 

 scarcely fulfil their office, and for a good distance the trees 

 which intertwined their branches served them as a protection 

 from the sun, until they came out into some level cultivated 

 fields over which it was pleasant to the sight to gaze. By 

 this they went as far as Negumbo, which is six Chingala 

 leagues. This canal was artificially made by the king when 

 he was at war with the Portuguese ; because the principal 

 internal trade of the Island being by the river Calene, and 

 its mouth being near Columbo, our people easily stopped it 

 by sea ; wherefore he diverted it by means of this canal, 

 which is of no little convenience."! 



This shows that canal communication between Colombo 

 and Negombo was established by a Kandyan king (probably 

 Don Juan Dharmapala, 1542-1584) longibef ore the time of the 

 Dutch, who usually get the credit of all our canal systems 

 in Ceylon. 



* St. John's Canal, probably. — D. W. P. 



t The Muturajawila is doubtless the canal referred to. I do not know 

 who was the king who constructed it. — D. W. F. 



