An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies: Together with an Account of the Detaining in Captivity the Author and Divers other Englishmen Now Living There, and of the Author's Miraculous EscapeKnox, Robert
History
An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies: Together with an Account of the Detaining in Captivity the Author and Divers other Englishmen Now Living There, and of the Author's Miraculous Escape
Knox, Robert
Sri Lanka -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Sri Lanka -- Social life and customs
There is another white Flower like our Jasmine, well scented, they call
them Picha-mauls, which the King hath a parcel of brought to him every
morning, wrapt in a white cloth, hanging upon a staff, and carried
by people, whose peculiar office this is. All people that meet these
flowers, out of respect to the King, for whose use they are, must turn
out of the Way; and so they must for all other things that go to the
King being wrapt up in white cloth. These Officers hold Land of the
King for this service: their Office is, also to plant these Flowers,
which they usually do near the Rivers where they most delight to grow:
Nay, they have power to plant them in any mans Ground, and enclose
that ground when they have done it for the sole use of their Flowers
to grow in: which Inclosures they will keep up for several years,
until the Ground becomes so worn, that the Flowers will thrive there
no longer, and then the Owners resume their own Lands again.
Hop-Mauls, are Flowers growing upon great Trees, which bear nothing
else, they are rarely sweet scented; this is the chief Flower the
young people use; and is of greatest value among them.
CHAP. VI.
Of their Beasts, Tame and Wild, Insects.
[What Beasts the Country produceth.] Having spoken concerning the Trees
and Plants of this Island, We will now go on to speak of the Living
Creatures on it, viz. Their Beasts, Insects, Birds, Fish, Serpents,
&c. useful or noxious. And we begin first with their Beasts. They have
Cowes, Buffaloes, Hogs, Goats, Deer, Hares, Dogs, Jacols, Apes, Tygers,
Bears, Elephants, and other Wild Beasts. Lions, Wolves, Horses, Asses,
Sheep, they have none. [Deer no bigger than Hares.] Deer are in great
abundance in the Woods, and of several sorts, from the largeness of
a Cow or Buffalo, to the smalness of a Hare. For here is a Creature
in this Land no bigger, but in every part rightly resembleth a Deer,
It is called Meminna, of colour gray with white spots, and good meat.
[Other Creatures rare in their kind.] Here are also wild Buffalo's;
also a sort of Beast they call Gauvera, so much resembling a Bull,
that I think it one of that kind. His back stands up with a sharp
ridg; all his four feet white up half his Legs. I never saw but one,
which was kept among the Kings Creatures. Here was a Black Tygre
catched and brought to the King, and afterwards a Deer milk white;
both which he very much esteemed; there being no more either before
or since ever heard of in that Land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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