76 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XVI. 



5. At the request of Mr. Buultjens, Mr. J oseph read an extract 

 from the Mahdwansa referring to Yan Eck's expedition.* 



6. Mr. Haly drew attention to the word " grasshopper," which 

 was supposed to relate to a sort of firearm. He mentioned a most 

 extraordinary kind of firearm from Kandy that had just been presented 

 to the Museum by Mr. Kindersley, and which would answer the 

 description very well. 



Mr. White understood that " grasshopper "f was a small fieldpiece 



on the natives. The number of elephants to be delivered up was fifty in the 

 two seasons ; these the Dutch transported to the opposite coast of the 

 continent, and sold to the native princes there at very high prices, as the 

 elephants of Ceylon are accounted superior to all others. The pearl fisheries 

 in the west and north-west shores where the pearl banks are situated formed 

 another acquisition to the Dutch by this treaty. Several persons from the 

 Malabar coast and other parts of the continent had established cotton 

 manufactories in the northern town of the island, particularly at Jaffna- 

 patam ; all these were now given over to the dominion of the Dutch. 



In return for all these valuable acquisitions, the Dutch acknowledged 

 the King of Candy to be Emperor of Ceylon, with a long string of other 

 sounding titles, which could only serve by their mockery to aggravate his 

 mortification ; and under these magnificent appellations they engaged, as 

 his dutiful subjects, to pay him a tribute and to send ambassadors yearly to 

 his court. The most valuable condition granted to him, and indeed that for 

 which he had consented to the hard terms of this Treaty, was a stipulation 

 on the part of the Dutch to supply his people with salt, free of expense, and 

 in such a quantity as to equal their consumption. The tribute to be paid 

 him was to consist of a certain part of the produce or its value, of the 

 ceded tracts along the coast ; but this article was soon infringed upon, and 

 indeed scarcely one stipulation of the Treaty was fulfilled with good faith. 

 {Percival.') — B., Hon. See. 



* See Appendix A, ante. 



f Mr. White, in a subsequent communication to the Hon. Secretary- 

 wrote : — 



" Davy, page 128, note, I think elucidates ' grasshoppers.' 



" The jingal is a very small and long piece of ordnance light enough to 

 be carried with ease by a single man, and very well adapted for a desultory 

 warfare among mountains. It is fired on the ground resting on a long 

 slender butt end and a pair of legs. They were carried by the Paduwa 

 caste." 



[Mr. White was correct in his explanation of " grasshopper " (Dutch 

 sprinlliaan) as "a fieldpiece with two small legs in the front," but it is 

 curious that none of the speakers mentioned that the English name is 

 "gingall" and the Sinhalese koddtuvaMuva. For the use of the former 

 word in English the earliest date given in Yule's " Hobson- Jobson " and 

 the Hist. Eng. Diet, is 1818 : but earlier instances occur in the narratives 

 of the Kandyan campaigns. For instance, in Cordiner, II., 190, we read 

 that in 1803, at Hanguranketa, the British troops " found nothing worth 

 carrying away excepting a few Candian guns, commonly known by the 



