a town in Ceylon, with a harbour the most capacious and secure in the Indian seas. It is situated in the north-east portion of the island, Lat. 8° 35' 38", N., and Long. 81° 16' 37" E., distant by the road 182 miles from Colombo, 130 from Jaffna, and about 113 from Kandy, the central capital. The coast in the immediate vicinity is bold and rocky, rising into wooded acclivities, with forests of valuable timber-trees, amongst which satinwood and ebony are abundant. The shore near the villages, wherever sand has been heaped up by the currents and rivers, is planted with palms, chiefly the cocoa-nut and palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis).

The entrance to the Bay of Trincomalie is by a passage from four to five miles wide; but such is the force of the current that sets to the southward during the N.E. monsoon, that sailing vessels are frequently carried past it. On freeing the channel the inlet expands, headlands and islands dividing the inner harbour to the north from Great Bay to the south. The latter receives the waters of the Mahaweli-ganga, the Kottilar, and two other rivers; it is about 5 miles in width, with a similar length, and its depth in some places is upwards of 70 fathoms. To the west of Great Bay, and communicating with it by a passage navigable only by boats, is the lagoon of Tamblogam, a shallow lake about 20 miles in circumference, which, according to a native tradition, was at no remote period a broad expanse of rice lands, irrigated by a canal from the enormous tank at Kandelay, 24 miles to the westward. The tank having partially fallen to ruin; and the waters issuing in a torrent, converted their ordinary outlet into an impetuous river, which, overflowing the plain below, burst open an entrance for the sea, that, once admitted, has ever since continued to hold possession. An examination of the locality confirms to some extent the possible truth of this tradition. The remains of the great tank are still in fine preservation, and could be readily restored; but the waters escaping from the broken bund, although partially applied to cultivation, are to some extent lost in the lagoon of Tamblogam. The lake abounds in fish, and produces in perfection the thin transparent oyster (Pinctada placentia), whose clear white shells are used in China, and elsewhere as a substitute for window-glass. They are collected annually for the sake of the pearls they produce. These pearls are exported to the coast of India, there to be burned into a species of lime, which the European princes affect to chew with their betel. So popular are the mollusca of the placentia, that the number of shells taken by the licensed renter in the three years prior to 1858 could not have been less than 18,000,000.

The inner harbour of Trincomalie is land-locked in every direction, with safe anchorage and deep water close to the principal wharves. It is protected on the east side by a rocky peninsula between 3 and 4 miles long, whose southern extremity rises into two elevated ridges, one of which, above Ostenberg Point, sustains a fort for the defence of the inner bay. The entrance to the latter is little more than a quarter of a mile wide. These cliffs, and the basalt of which they are partially composed, exhibit traces of a volcanic origin, a conjecture which is sustained by the existence of a hot spring at Kannes, a few miles to the north-west. Some shoals and sunken rocks, well known to the local pilots, render the passage somewhat hazardous without their assistance. Within the area of the great harbour it covers a space upwards of 3 miles in length from north to south, with a breadth somewhat greater, irrespective of the coves and indentures which diversify its outline. It contains several wooded islands, and it is surrounded by hills covered with forests to their summits.

On the east side of the peninsula, which protects the inner harbour, the outline of the coast forms another port, fronting the Bay of Bengal, known as Back Bay, which affords safe holding ground and deep water close to the beach. This is reserved to by shipping Trincomalee during the S.W. monsoon, when the wind is off the shore. On a promontory at its southern extremity, which is surmounted by Fort Fredrick, a light is displayed at a height of 206 feet above the sea, and serves as a guide to vessels of the reefs off Pigeon Island to the north, as well as of the shoals off Fort Point, on the south side of the passage leading to the bay. From the 25th October, when the N.E. monsoon begins to blow, till the middle of March, the anchorage in Back Bay is unsafe, owing to the heavy swell which it occasions.

Fort Frederick is commanded from the adjacent heights; and being situated 3 miles to the northward of the dockyard, and the mouth of the inner harbour, it protects only the outer anchorage, and is available solely as a point d'appui. Notwithstanding their extent, the military works of Trincomalie are utterly incommensurate with the importance of the position, and would be found ineffectual for its protection in the event of attack. The town is built across the neck of the promontory above referred to, and extends to the sea on either side. It had formerly a bad reputation from fever and other ailments incidental to damp and malaria, but the clearance of the jungle close to the suburbs, and the draining of the adjacent lands previously submerged by the decay of works for irrigation, have contributed to remove this reproach, and Trincomalie, at the present day, is no less healthy than any other portion of the maritime provinces. Its climate resembles that of the Indian peninsula south of Madras. With moist winds and plentiful dew light showers are frequent, and the rain throughout the year does not exceed 40 inches. The temperature of this part of Ceylon follows the course of the sun, and ranges from a minimum of 76° in December and January to a maximum of 94° in May and June; but the heat is rendered tolerable at all seasons by the steadiness of the land and sea breezes. The mean is about 81°. A meteorological record for the year 1854 exhibits the following results:

| Month | Mean Maximum Temperature | Mean Minimum Temperature | Extreme Range for Month | Highest Temperature | Days of Rain | |-------|--------------------------|--------------------------|------------------------|--------------------|-------------| | January | 81°3' | 74°7' | 14° | 83° | 10 | | February | 83°8 | 75°8 | 14 | 86 | 7 | | March | 85°9 | 76°1 | 16 | 88 | 3 | | April | 89°6 | 78°9 | 16 | 92 | 3 | | May | 89°1 | 79°3 | 19 | 93 | 3 | | June | 90°0 | 79°5 | 19 | 94 | 3 | | July | 87°7 | 77°7 | 16 | 90 | 5 | | August | 87°3 | 77°4 | 16 | 91 | 4 | | September | 83°3 | 77°8 | 18 | 93 | 2 | | October | 82°2 | 75°8 | 15 | 89 | 2 | | November | 81°0 | 74°9 | 12 | 83 | 15 | | December | 80°1 | 74°3 | 11 | 82 | 15 |

Trincomalie, which is still called by the Tamils, who form the preponderating body of the population, "Tiru-konatha-malie," "the sacred hill of Konatha," appears to have been one of the earliest settlements of the Malabar race in Ceylon, who, at a period which has escaped historic record, erected on the cliff, now crowned by Fort Frederick, a temple dedicated to Konatha or Konaris. This edifice was still in existence on the arrival of the Portuguese, in the early part of the sixteenth century. They desecrated and destroyed it in 1622, using the materials for the construction of the fort; but the pagoda is remembered as the "Temple of a Thousand Columns," and near its site is a cliff still designated the Saway Rock, a term expressive of its sanctity. Twice a week a procession, attended by devotees, who bring offerings of fruits and flowers, repaired at sunset to the spot where the rock projects above the ocean; a series of ceremonies are performed, including the mysterious breaking of a cocoanut against the cliff; and the officiating Brahman concludes his invocation by elevating a brazen censer above his head, filled with inflammable materials, the light of which, as they burn, is reflected far over the sea.

The Portuguese attached no importance to the possession of Trincomalie, which lay remote from their trading settlements on the opposite side of Ceylon; and their attention was only directed towards it by their alarm for its falling into the hands of Holland. Their imperfect fortifications did not avert this catastrophe; the Dutch took possession of it in 1639, and under their authority it remained till temporarily occupied by the English under Sir Hector Munro in 1782. The fort was, however, surprised by Admiral Suffrein and a French fleet immediately afterwards, and restored to Holland in the following year. At length, in 1795, an expedition fitted out from Madras arrived, and, after a siege of three weeks, reduced the fort and the town. Trincomalie, with all other The modern town is scarcely built, its only recommendation being the breadth and airiness of its streets and esplanade. The temples are in good repair and impoverished; the bazaars poor, and supplied with little beyond the absolute necessaries of life; and the only edifices worthy of notice are the public offices and barracks, and the residences of the civil and naval authorities. The official house of the admiral commanding in chief in the Indian Seas is situated in a park close to the naval arsenal and dockyards. Being the chief town of the eastern province of Ceylon, Trincomalle is the residence of the principal revenue and judicial officers. The revenue jurisdiction extends over an area of 4573 square miles, the population of which, exclusive of the British troops, is but 75,798 persons. Of these, only 344 are whites. The inhabitants of the town itself and its immediate suburbs are under 20,000. There is an English church, served by a chaplain of the establishment; two Roman Catholic chapels; a meeting-house of the Wesleyan Methodists; and several Mohammedan mosques belonging to the enterprising race known by the local designation of Moors, who, in all the seaports of Ceylon, are the most energetic of the native mercantile bodies. There is a public library, the property of the civil community; and a road supported by the government or the missionaries, and a great road leading inland to Kandy, a distance of 112 miles, was commenced many years back; but owing to the numerous rivers to be bridged, it has not yet been completed. For the last 17 miles into Kandy it is rendered useless for land carriages, but the rest of the journey can only be performed on horseback.

As regards its trade and foreign relations, Trincomalle has not hitherto been a place of commercial importance. The cultivation of cinnamon, as well as the export of gems and pearls, having at all times been confined to the south and west of the island, the northern and eastern portions were uninterested in trading operations; and even at the present day, the customs receipts of Trincomalle are under £3000 per annum. The total value of imports in 1839 was £19,637; and the exports, consisting of salt, ebony, satin-wood, and the products of the cocoanut palm, £6,976, £s. 2d.

It is more than probable, however, in the present transitional state of the colony, and with the growing importance of Ceylon as the point of arrival and departure for almost every line of steamer that traverses the Indian and Pacific Oceans, that advantage may ere long be taken of the matchless Bay of Trincomalle, to make it the rendezvous of all the packets and vessels now resorting to Colombo and Galle. The peculiar superiority of its harbour over every other in India consists in its perfect accessibility to all descriptions of craft in every variation of weather. It can be entered with equal facility and safety in the N.E. as in the S.W., moonsoon, and the water within is so deep that vessels can lie close to the beach, and discharge or receive cargo without the interference of boats. Its geographical position has already caused its adoption as the most favourable point for a great naval station and dockyard, whence instructions, and intelligence, may be rapidly communicated to the various forces in the eastern seas. Regarding Ceylon, at the present moment, as the centre of all operations for postal communications with Madras and Calcutta, the Straits settlements, China and Australia, as well as with the French, Dutch, and Spanish possessions in the East, the insufficiency and defects of the harbour of Point de Galle are so evident, as to render it idle to institute a comparative inquiry into the manifest advantages offered by that of Trincomalle. The unrivalled position of the latter for commerce, fronting the Bay of Bengal, and presenting a natural point of conveyance for all vessels trading to India and the East, marks it out as having been destined for a great emporium, to which shipping of all nations will yet find it their interest to resort.

Closely connected with this important measure, will be the restoration of its navigable character to the great river, the Mahaweli-ganga, which was formerly traversible by light craft from Trincomalle to the foot of the Kandyan Mountains, now the principal seat of coffee cultivation in Ceylon. About 40 miles before it enters the sea, the Mahaweli-ganga now separates into two branches—one the Koorogal-ganga, which continues a northerly course till it falls into the Bay of Bengal, W. of Kottiar; the other, the Vergel-sar, which, diverging almost at right angles at a point called Koorangemango, reaches the coast by several mouths N. and S. of Armettive. The tradition of the Sinhalese is, that at one very remote period, the Vergel-sar was but a narrow water-course, used by the natives for the irrigation of their paddy-fields; but that the soil being light and yielding, it hollowed out, and deepened its own bed with such rapidity as almost to drain the original channel of the river below the point of junction. The Vergel thus became what it now is, one of the most tumultuous and dangerous torrents on the eastern side of Ceylon; and by the same operation, the original channel of the Mahaweli-ganga was rendered so shallow as to be at all times unnavigable, and even dry in many places, except during the freshes after the rains, when it resumes its original depth and importance. By preventing the abstraction of the water, now diverted into the Vergel, and by removing some sand-banks and minor obstructions below the present junction, the Mahaweli-ganga might be easily rendered navigable for 80 miles from the Bay of Trincomalle to Callang—a most important locality in the centre of one of the most fertile and productive districts of Ceylon—where, however, in consequence of the absence of roads or any other means of intercommunication, the soil is almost uncultivated, except in the immediate vicinity of the Moorish villages scattered over the district of Tamankaduwa. For 30 miles above Callang, the removal of the rocks and impediments would be difficult; but even here a communication might be established for a moderate expenditure, and inland navigation rendered possible from the eastern coast almost to the coffee plantations in the mountain zone; where is also situated Kandy, the inland capital. To the coffee-planters, the conveyance of rice and stores from the low country would be a signal benefit; and the transport of coffee to a shipping port, at a reasonable charge, would reduce one of the most formidable difficulties against which the planters have to struggle, and the competition with other producing countries; and to the Kandyan peasantry, the realisation of such a project would be productive of simultaneous advantage, by opening up a market for the agricultural productions of the interior, as well as an outlet for its mineral wealth; and by affording an easy carriage to the sea for the ebony, satin-wood, and other valuable timber, which now grow in neglected luxuriance and in almost exhaustless profusion throughout the forests intersected by the Mahaweli-ganga. Trincomalle, if thus converted into a place of export for the products of Ceylon, and a rendezvous for the foreign shipping frequenting those seas, would speedily become, that for which nature has adapted its unrivalled harbour, the most secure and commodious emporium of India. (Percival's Account of Ceylon; Cordier's Description of Ceylon; Davy's Account of the Interior of Ceylon; Forbes' Eleven Years in Ceylon; Sir J. Emerson Tennent's Ceylon, &c.)