Galle lighthouse, ramparts and cockerel, by Muthu.
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Last modified:
'1 Jan 2002
 

Watering Place

Watering Place, a page in the diary of Governor  Rumpf, 1717. Netherlands State Archive.Governor Rumpf visited Galle in the summer of 1717, and in his diary is this watercolour drawing of the watering place, annotated as follows¹:

Map of the sand-bay below the mountains of Roemasselcande, under the jurisdiction of the village Oenawattoena, situated east of the town of Gale, on the other side of the bay, about three-quarter mile across the water, where the drinking water for ships is obtained, namely:

The Reservoir to collect the water that is required; because of damage with time, the necessary repairwork has been done to it...

ABCDEFG was of old made from piled-up rocks, from the bottom upward to ground level. Part ABC of it is erected anew,... likewise CD...
HIKL [in red, at the seaward outlet of the reservoir] is a square compartment newly built of bricks and on level with the ground, to replace the pentagonal figure, which was made of rocks [still visible in the picture, underneath the new construction]. On it the wooden gutter MN will come to collect the water from the pump.
O. pump; P. two pillars, on top of which the pump handle will be placed; q.r. a board to stand on while pumping;
N.S. are two gutter basins; in between them is a closed brickwork gutter. From there it continues as an open gutter until T, with at the end a gutter of black stone T.S., which juts out over the jetty; below it comes the wooden gutter on the jetty, TV; & W. the jetty; X.Y. a lot of rocks put there to free the jetty from lashings of the sea.
Z. a shed on six pillars, covered with tiles.
No.6. a talipot shelter for the lascarin-guardsmen.
7. 8. & 9. are three water courses running down the mountain to the sea. To collect the water in the reservoii two dams have been newly constructed, no.10. and 11.; in the latter an opening no.13. is left to drain the surplus into the sea.
12. the flat ground, rising upwards from here to the mountain, a part of which, around the reservoir, is much cleared of overgrown bushes.

Gale, 29th April Anno 1720. -
L. Stevensz

Inscriptions on the drawing are: 'The part of the mountain that has been cleared', 'red earth', and 'the reservoir'.



  1. Translation in R.K. de Silva and W.G.M. Beumer, 1988, Illustrations and Views of Dutch Ceylon 1602-1796, Serendib Publications, London. (p.168)


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