3 02 
THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
The government house, which faces the harbour, is a very 
long and capacious building, but more convenient than elegant. 
Several offices are attached to it, where the business of govern- 
ment is transacted. Behind it is an excellent garden, origi- 
nally intended for a tank, or reservoir, in the event of a siege ; 
for, though every house has a well plentifully supplied with 
water through the whole year, yet it is of a brackish quality, 
and unfit to drink. On this account the Europeans belonging 
both to the civil and military establishment, are supplied with 
water from springs about a mile from the fort. It is brought 
by means of bullocks in leathern bags, called here puckally 
bags, a certain number of which is attached to every regiment 
and garrison in India. Black fellows, called puckally hoys, arc 
employed to fill the bags, and drive the bullocks to the quar- 
ters of the different Europeans. When the troops are on a 
march, a different mode is practised. A certain number of 
negroes, appointed for the purpose, carry on their shoulders 
smaller leathern bags with pipes attached to them, called beasties 
With these they run along the line, giving water to every 
soldier who stands in need of it; and as soon as the baas 
o 
are empty, replenish them at the first spring or river they 
meet with. 
Columbo is built more in the European style, if such an 
analogy can at all be drawn, than any other garrison in India. 
The interior of the fort has also more the appearance of a 
regular town ; as none of those huts, peculiar to the natives, 
are allowed to be erected in it. The Dutch houses are all re- 
