76 Island of Manaai\ 
mandel coast is not above twelve or fourteen leagues ; but the 
advantages which might be derived from this speedy communi- 
ca,tion are in a great measure prevented by the numberless 
shallows and sandbanks which every where interrupt the passage, 
and are so high as to be many of them completely dry except 
during the monsoons. There is in particular a line of sand- 
banks which runs quite across from Manaar to Ramiseram, 
known by the name of Adams bridge, also called Ramas 
bridge, as that God is said to have come by this way into 
Ceylon. ,rRamiseram takes its name from him ; and has a large 
temple dedicated to him. The name and situation of these 
banks of Adam’s bridge are connected with a variety of curious 
traditions among the natives. It is universally believed among 
them that Ceylon was either the Paradise in which the ancestor 
of the human race resided, or the spot on which he first 
touched on being expelled from a Celestial Paradise. Adam’s 
bridge is, with them, the Avay by which he passed over to 
the continent ; and some imagine that the gulph of Manaar, 
like the Red Sea in scriptural history, closed after him to 
prevent his return. The opinion, however, is almost univer- 
sally received that Ceylon at a distant period formed a part 
of the continent, and was separated from it by some great con- 
vulsion of nature. This account, tliough merely an unsup- 
ported tradition, is not altogether improbable ; for when we 
consider the narrowness of the intervening space, and the 
numberless shallows with which it abounds, it cannot be denied 
that some violent earthquake, or, what is still more likely, 
some extraordinary irruption of the ocean, might have placed 
Ceylon at its present distarxe from the continent. 
This idea is further strengtliened by the appearance of the 
