No. 58. — 1907.] NOTES ON CEYLON PAINTING, &C. 119 



depota lanuwa, tunpota lanuwa, delgeta lanuwa, ratwat- 

 alankaraya, taniweliruwa, &c). 



When the weaving is finished the projecting ends of fibre 

 at each end of the mat are turned up over a thread drawn 

 tight along the edge (like a piping-cord) and knotted each one 

 to it by another thread which catches up each projecting end 

 in a slip knot, forming a neat binding. 



The mats are pleasant in colour and sometimes varied in 

 design, and can be turned to various decorative ends ; they 

 may be made into screens or used as a dado or allowed to serve 

 their natural purpose on the floor. After two or three years, 

 however, the colours are somewhat faded, but as new mats are 

 not very expensive, the old ones can then be renewed. 



5. — Paper and Tinder in Ceylon. 



Of paper making, now a lost art in Ceylon, Mr. W. C. 

 Ondaatje wrote as follows in 1854 : — * 



<4 The manufacture of paper by the Kandyans during the 

 period the country was under native rule is a subject which 

 I conceive is fraught with much local interest, nor am I aware 

 that public attention has before been directed to it. It seems 

 probable, from the intercourse that once subsisted between 

 the ancient inhabitants of the Island and the Chinese, es- 

 pecially in connection with the cinnamon trade, that the 

 Singhalese derived their knowledge of manufacturing paper 

 from the latter, who, it is well known, have made it from the 

 liber or inner bark of a species of moms, cotton, and bamboo 

 from time immemorial. Whilst botanizing in the jungles of 

 Badulla a species of fig was pointed out to me by an old 

 Kandyan doctor, which, he said, had formerly been used to 



make paper from On further inquiry I ascertained from 



another aged Kandyan that the plant to which my notice had 

 been first called was of a different species from that which had 

 been used by his countrymen for making paper. This indivi- 

 dual himself had never made any, but understood the method 



* Observations on the Vegetable Products of Ceylon. Colombo, 1854. 



c 36-07 



