No. 57. — 1906.] coconut cultivation. 



67 



notwithstanding the enterprise of the Moormen traders as 

 shippers of nuts to Cambay and Persia so early as the 14th 

 to 15th centuries. At the beginning of last century the 

 estimate was that there were 10 millions* of coconut palms 

 in Ceylon. One hundred and fifty years earlier a safe esti- 

 mate would in our opinion be about 8 to8^ millions ; for, we 

 do not think there was much extension of cultivation by the 

 people in the latter end of the 17th and 18th centuries, for 

 reasons which will be given in our second Paper covering the 

 Dutch and British periods to date. As centuries rolled by, 

 it must be remembered there was always work for the people 



and especially cinnamon. Twenty years later, by the year 1695, however, 

 the Dutch rulers had discovered some value in coconuts as a source of 

 revenue ; and Jaffna cultivators were specially exempted from the coconut 

 tax, because they supplied the leaves of the palm to feed the elephants 

 belonging- to the Government. But all this, with other interesting- 

 extracts Mr. Anthonisz can give from Dutch archives, belongs rather to the 

 second part of my Paper. — Since writing the foregoing I have come across 

 an Order in Council of the Dutch Executive in Ceylon, dated May, 1669 

 (Iranslated by the late B,. Van Cuylenburg, Esq., in a Paper for this Society' s 

 Journal, 1874, part I., page 69), which runs as follows :— " May, 1669— The 

 Council finding that the coconut plantation at Soute Tangh yields a 

 revenue of not more than 1,260 rix-dollars per annum, against an outlay 

 of 620 rds. per mensem, resolve on renting it out to the Burgher Louis 

 Trumble (see Valentyn, Ceylon, 245) at 900 rds. per annum from the 21st 

 June next to the end of February, 1671." The Government Archivist, Mr. 

 Anthonisz, tells me that "Soute Tangh" must be a sort of hybrid equi- 

 valent (half Dutch, half Portuguese) for " Tanque Salgado," situated 

 at Mutwal. Mr. Anthonisz writes : " Tanque Salgado is Portuguese for 

 salt pond. The name is now applied to a pretty large tract of land in the 

 northern suburbs of Colombo, below Fisher's Hill. It is evident the 

 Portuguese either found such a pond, or made one, in the spot after their 

 arrival here. But all traces of a pond have, I believe, now disappeared. 

 In the oldest Dutch records the name is applied to a hamlet with a large 

 population. I find it mentioned in a 17th century school thombu with 

 other hamlets in the neighbourhood, such as Horta Padre (Priest's 

 Garden), Horta Juan Smarts (Juan Swaris' Garden), Goensioych (Goen's 

 Retreat), Horta Cadirane" (Garden of Cadirane), &c. All the names 

 are Portuguese except Goenswyck, which is called after the Dutch 

 Governor Rycklof van Goens." 



* Bertolacci in 1815.— Our estimate at the present time (1906) for all 

 Ceylon is that there must be about 60 millions of coco palms growing, 

 of all ages and conditions. 



F 2 



