109 ) 
WHO JIRST INTRODUCEO OPIUIVI INTO 
CEYLON ? 
MUHAMMADANS AND PORTUGUESE PROBABLY. 
Samauala, 20, Beecli House Koad, Oroydon, 
July 1st. 
Sir,— Thougli I liave no direcb proof to offer, I 
feel certain that tlie narcotics derived trotu the 
poppy and heiup were introduced into Ceylon by 
the Muhamniadau traders long before Europeans 
set foot in the island. But that they were commoa 
in Ceylon (in the coast towns, at any rate) in 
Portuguese times, I can prove. 
Writing to the Viceroy of India on GthFebruary, 
1589, the King of Spain and Portugal says:— "Dora 
Filipa, Prince of Candea, sent to beg me in a letter 
of his that I would grant him the favour of com- 
manding him to be given as allowance the two 
thousand Kve hundred pardaos that Dora Joao, 
Prince of Ceylon, received as income each year 
from the revenues from opium and soap," etc. I 
cannot find any record of the grant to D. Jo^o ; 
nor am I at all certain that Ceylon enters into 
this question, as both the princes resided in Goa, 
and it is likely that it is the revenues of that city 
that are referred to. (From the Tombo do Estado 
da India we learn that in Goa and Chaul, in the 
middle of the sixteenth century, opium, bhang 
and soap were rented together — a curious combi- 
nation !) 
But about my next quotation there is no un- 
certainly- In the bill of indictment brought in 
1615 against the former general of Ceylon, D. 
Francisco de Meneses, the first two charges read as 
follows : — 
" 1. That the said general is more occupied 
with trafficking and merchandize than with what 
concerns the conquest which the viceroy Dom Jero- 
nymo intrusted to him, 
" 2. That so much so is this the case, that he is 
the first who has ordered to be taken to a certain 
district of the villlages adjacent to Candea o/jiwm, 
cloths, hoes, axes and other things, in exchan"e 
for areca, pepper, ginger and other articles of mer- 
chandize that come from Candea, and by his 
example causes the same to be done in the roads 
of the Seven and Four Corlas by one of the four 
captains of the Dissavas [i.e., dis&vanis], Luiz 
Pinto by name a Portuguese, with whom the said 
captain general is in partnership and divides the 
profits." 
The gravemen of the charge, you will notice, is 
not the demoralization of the Kandyans by sup- 
plying thera with opium, but the fact that Dom 
Francisco preferred trading with them to torturing 
and massacring them, as his predecessor Dom 
Jeronymo had done during eighteen long years. 
As to bhang, we know from the veracious 
Robert Knox tiiat it was in common use in Ceylon 
in his time, he himself having used it with benefit 
as an antidote to bad water.— Yours truly, 
DONALD FERGUSON. 
halt of the past century beyond the requirements 
ot hospitals, apothecaries and the Malays of 
the Ceylon Rifle,. And as we said, so keea 
an observer as Dr. John Divy says nothing 
about opium being used by the Sinhalese in is 
aay. liut for all practical purposes, wa need not 
go farther back than 1850, when the total import 
was on y 800 lb., a quantity required for the 
iiospitals and apothecaries while any over would 
be for the Malays of the Rifle Regiment. 
Lhe development of the import trade from 800 
lb. to 20,000 lb. is the melancholy distinction of 
the past half-century of British rule.— Ed. L E ] 
HOW TO CATCH ALLIGATORS. 
[Our correspondent has had access to Portu- 
guese authorities beyond our ken : he admits his 
first quotation may refer to Goa ; but the second 
passage is certainly conclusive that opium was 
introduced and sold to the Sinhalese before Brit- 
ish times ; but evidently, in, comparatively, 
small quantities and very likely the trafficking died 
down after Portuguese times ; for there is no 
sign of " opium " being imported in the first 
The following account is taken from the 
tZ IxxlZT-^ Though crooodnel 
aiicl alligators, both man-eating and fish- 
nSt^/ApTh '^^f'^^^nd in the northern 
parts of the provuice. even so far northwards 
as Gour, they are not so common up Therl 
as they are in the Sunderbuns or the reSs 
withm their zone, The Ichhamati, in NadK 
Jessore. and the 21 Per#?unnas, and the Rood- 
naram in Midnapur are two inland Svers 
which are notorious for their crocodiles but 
however much they may be infested by these 
monsters, people living in 0 ilcafcta and othir 
cities have scarcely any idea as to the number 
ferocity and proportions of the a fJ^rmL 
ZY'?^ a'^eto be found in and on he ofets 
of the Sunderbuns. The writer was once for 
several days together, on a visit to t Hp 
"^iZT^W Sunderbuns and lu day lo^l 
d les r?F ^'.1 ^^^^ '^'""^^^ numberless croco 
diles of all sizes, some black, some white 
At one place he found a monster which was 
so big as almost to strike him with wonder 
It was basking m the sun, and only the unne,' 
portion of It was on levra firm% ^FromThe 
tip ot the nose to the hind legs it w^ nob 
less than 10 or 11 cubits. When th^wri^er 
w?th ^^hot after it. it .plunged into the^S 
with a violence which rocked the steam 
launch he was in, with almost the forced 
a hurricane. Arbelia is a village in the 
Basirhat Sub-division of the 2i:Perguunas 
where usually alligators or crocodiles do not 
appear to trouble the villagers and destro^ 
their property. During the list rainy season 
an alligator somehow or other found it^wav 
into a pond m this populous village and 
fixed Its quarters in the tank of the late 
Babu Prasanna Chunder Bhattacharjee Q iffcl 
unaccountably the fish in that and some 
aeighbouung tanks began to diminish and f^n 
some time the villagers were a™a oss to find 
at last'thrtrunf '^is destruction of fish,^il1 
at last the truth came out and the presence 
of the monster was divined. The v llao-ers 
fhi''''^",>^'^f together but for some timi 
they could not find the way as to hn«.^^ 
account for the unwelcomTTisftor At"^asfc 
the other day. Master Jitendra Nath R^tn 
a grandson of Babu Unendra Ph^n^^. r 
tl.e well known Vakil o'I'the" 8St'^ 1^' 
Court, -a youth of sixteen but quite robust 
for his years, -undertook to captui^ the bmce 
The time was fixed and the neighbourhood 
of the tank was packed with an'eager and 
