[Footnote 3:—­ABOUZEYD, Voyages Arabes, &c., t. i. p. 6; REINAUD, Memoire sur l’Inde, &c p. 222.]

BERTOLACCI mentions a curious local peculiarity[1] observed by the fishermen in the natural history of the chank.  “All shells,” he says, “found to the northward of a line drawn from a point about midway from Manaar to the opposite coast (of India) are of the kind called patty, and are distinguished by a short flat head; and all those found to the southward of that line are of the kind called pajel, and are known from having a longer and more pointed head than the former.  Nor is there ever an instance of deviation from this singular law of nature.  The Wallampory, or ‘right-hand chanks,’ are found of both kinds.”

[Footnote 1:  See also the Asiatic Journal for 1827, p. 469.]

This tendency of particular localities to re-produce certain specialities of form and colour is not confined to the sea or to the instance of the chank shell.  In the gardens which line the suburbs of Galle in the direction of Matura the stems of the coco-nut and jak trees are profusely covered with the shells of the beautiful striped Helix hamastoma.  Stopping frequently to collect them, I was led to observe that each separate garden seemed to possess a variety almost peculiar to itself; in one the mouth of every individual shell was red; in another, separated from the first only by a wall, black; and in others (but less frequently) pure white; whilst the varieties of external colouring were equally local.  In one enclosure they were nearly all red, and in an adjoining one brown.[1]

[Footnote 1:  DARWIN, in his Naturalist’s Voyage, mentions a parallel instance of the localised propagation of colours amoungst the cattle which range the pasturage of East Falkland Island:  “Round Mount Osborne about half of some of the herds were mouse-coloured, a tint no common anywhere else,—­near Mount Pleasant dark-brown prevailed; whereas south of Choiseul Sound white beasts with black heads and feet were common.”—­Ch. ix. p. 192.]

A trade more ancient by far than that carried on in chanks, and infinitely more renowned, is the fishery of pearls on the west coast of Ceylon, bordering the Gulf of Manaar.  No scene in Ceylon presents so dreary an aspect as the long sweep of desolate shore to which, from time immemorial, adventurers have resorted from the uttermost ends of the earth in search of the precious pearls for which this gulf is renowned.  On approaching it from sea the only perceptible landmark is a building erected by Lord Guildford, as a temporary residence for the Governor, and known by the name of the “Doric,” from the style of its architecture.  A few coco-nut palms appear next above the low sandy beach, and presently are discovered the scattered houses which form the villages of Aripo and Condatchy.

Between these two places, or rather between the Kalaar and Arrive river, the shore is raised to a height of many feet, by enormous mounds of shells, the accumulations of ages, the millions of oysters[1], robbed of their pearls, having been year after year flung into heaps, that extend for a distance of many miles.