Part 82 (1/2)

[Footnote 2: EDRISI; _Geographie_, &c., tom. i. p. 73.]

_Betel_--In connection with a diet so largely composed of vegetable food, arose the custom, which to the present day is universal in Ceylon,--of chewing the leaves of the betel vine, accompanied with lime and the sliced nut of the areca palm.[1] The betel (_piper betel_), which is now universally cultivated for this purpose, is presumed to have been introduced from some tropical island, as it has nowhere been found indigenous in continental India.[2] In Ceylon, its use is mentioned as early as the fifth century before Christ, when ”betel leaves” formed the present sent by a princess to her lover.[3] In a conflict of Dutugaimunu with the Malabars, B.C. 161, the enemy seeing on his lips the red stain of the betel, mistook it for blood, and spread the false cry that the king had been slain.[4]

[Footnote 1: For an account of the medicinal influence of betel-chewing, see Part I. c. iii. -- ii. p. 112.]

[Footnote 2: ROYLE'S _Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, p._ 85.]

[Footnote 3: B. C. 504. _Mahawanso_, ch. ix. p. 57. Dutugaimunu, when building the Ruanwelle dagoba, provided for the labourers amongst other articles ”the five condiments used in mastication.” This probably refers to the chewing of betel and its accompaniments (_Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.x. p.

175). A story is told of the wife of a Singhalese minister, about A. D.

56, who to warn him of a conspiracy, sent him his ”betel, &c., for mastication, omitting the chunam,” hoping that coming in search of it, he might escape his ”impending fate.” _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xv. p. 219.]

[Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 221.]

Intoxicating liquors are of sufficient antiquity to be denounced in the moral system of Buddhism. The use of toddy and drinks obtained from the fermentation of ”bread and flour” is condemned in the laity, and strictly prohibited to the priesthood[1]; but the Arabian geographers mention that in the twelfth century, wine, in defiance of the prohibition, was imported from Persia, and drank by the Singhalese after being flavoured with cardamoms.[2]

[Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Buddhism_, e., ch. x. p. 474.]

[Footnote 2: EDRISI, _Geographle,_ &c., Trad. JAUBERT, tom. i. p. 73.]

CHAP. III

EARLY COMMERCE, s.h.i.+PPING, AND PRODUCTIONS.

TRADE.--At a very early period the ma.s.s of the people of Ceylon were essentially agricultural, and the proportion of the population addicted to other pursuits consisted of the small number of handicraftsmen required in a community amongst whom civilisation and refinement were so slightly developed, that the bulk of the inhabitants may be said to have had few wants beyond the daily provision of food.

Upon trade the natives appear to have looked at all times with indifference. Other nations, both of the east and west of Ceylon, made the island their halting-place and emporium; the Chinese brought thither the wares destined for the countries beyond the Euphrates, and the Arabians and Persians met them with their products in exchange; but the Singhalese appear to have been uninterested spectators of this busy traffic, in which they can hardly be said to have taken any share. The inhabitants of the opposite coast of India, aware of the natural wealth of Ceylon, partic.i.p.ated largely in its development, and the Tamils, who eagerly engaged in the pearl fishery, gave to the gulf of Manaar the name of Salabham, ”the sea of gain.”[l]

[Footnote 1: The Tamils gave the same name to Chilaw, which was the nearest town to the pearl fishery (and which Ibn Batuta calls _Salawat_); and eventually they called the whole island _Salabham_.]

_Native s.h.i.+pping._--The only mention made of native s.h.i.+ps in the sacred writings of the Singhalese, is in connection with missions, whether for the promotion of Buddhism, or for the negotiation of marriages and alliances with the princes of India.[1] The building of dhoneys is adverted to as early as the first century, but they were only intended by a devout king to be stationed along the sh.o.r.es of the island, covered by day with white cloths, and by night illuminated with lamps, in order that from them priests, as the royal almoners, might distribute gifts and donations of food.[2]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, App. p. 73.]

[Footnote 2: By King Maha Dailiya, A.D. 8. _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xiv. p.

211; _Rajavali_, p. 228; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 52.]

The genius of the people seems to have never inclined them to a sea-faring life, and the earliest notice which occurs of s.h.i.+ps for the defence of the coast, is in connection with the Malabars who were taken into the royal service from their skill in naval affairs.[1] A national marine was afterwards established for this purpose, A.D. 495, by the King Mogallana.[2] In the _Suy-shoo_, a Chinese history of the Suy dynasty, it is stated that in A.D. 607, the king of Ceylon ”sent the Brahman Kew-mo-lo with thirty vessels, to meet the approaching s.h.i.+ps which conveyed an emba.s.sy from China.”[3] And in the twelfth century, when Prakrama I. was about to enter on his foreign expeditions, ”several hundreds of vessels were equipped for that service within five months.”[4]

[Footnote 1: B.C. 247. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 127.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xl. TURNOUR'S MS. Transl.]

[Footnote 3: _Suy-shoo_, b. lx.x.xi. p. 3.]

[Footnote 4: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, &c., App. p. 73.]

It is remarkable that the same apathy to navigation, if not antipathy to it, still prevails amongst the inhabitants of an island, the long sea-borde of which affords facilities for cultivating a maritime taste, did any such exist. But whilst the natives of Hindustan fit out sea-going vessels, and take service as sailors for distant voyages, the Singhalese, though most expert as fishers and boatmen, never embark in foreign vessels, and no instance exists of a native s.h.i.+p, owned, built, or manned by Singhalese.

The boats which are in use at the present day, and which differ materially in build at different parts of the island, appear to have been all copied from models supplied by other countries. In the south the curious canoes, which attract the eye of the stranger arriving at Point de Galle by their balance-log and outrigger, were borrowed from the islanders of the Eastern Archipelago; the more substantial canoe called a _ballam_, which is found in the estuaries and shallow lakes around the northern sh.o.r.e, is imitated from one of similar form on the Malabar coast; and the catamaran is common to Ceylon and Coromandel. The awkward dhoneys, built at Jaffna, and manned by Tamils, are imitated from those at Madras; while the Singhalese dhoney, south of Colombo, is but an enlargement of the Galle canoe with its outrigger, so clumsily constructed that the gunwale is frequently topped by a line of wicker-work smeared with clay, to protect the deck front the wash of the sea.[1]