Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Elusive French naturalist’s account of Ceylon
There are several salient features incorporated in this Jonville’s compendium. Apart from unpublished manuscript, a presentation, a preface done by Marie-Hèlène Estève together with the text on the Religion and Manners of the People of Ceylon reproduced from the Asiatic Society Publications, an abridgement of the history of Chalias written by Adrian Ragia Pakse (Chief of that Cast Mudliyar Adrian Rajapakse), the text from SMW (whose identity is not discovered) and Journal of Royal Asiatic Society (Ceylon Branch) on the Narrative of a journey to Kandy with the Embassy of Major General Macdowell in 1800, Journal of Travel in the Districts of Galle and Maturè in 1800 translated by Marie-Hèlène Estève, Kandelay Lake translated by Marie-Hèlène Estève, A Geological Survey of the Island of Ceylon by Marie-Hèlène Estève together with a drawing on crystallization, a letter on the Governor of Ceylon about the religion of the Burmese with the first page of the Sinhalese alphabet annexed to the manuscript, an alphabetical index together with 24 documents as annexure are found in this useful work.
Rohan Pethiyagoda in his book ‘Pearls, Spices and Green Gold’ - an illustrated history of biodiversity exploration in Sri Lanka – describes Jonville is among ‘the most elusive of the naturalist in early natural history of Sri Lanka’. The co-author Marie-Hèlène Estève of this new book should be congratulated for her painstaking detailed biographical research on this ‘most elusive of the naturalist’. In other words Joseph Marie Eudelin Marve de Jonville has re-emerged from this splendid biographical account of Jonville. The book is replete with seven water color drawings and several other black and white drawings (some should be in reduced form).
Jonville was in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) firstly as a pioneer ‘British’ naturalist and secondly as the founder of Surveyor General Department of Ceylon, the first department in Asia promulgated by a proclamation in Point de Galle on July 2, 1800, where he functioned as the Surveyor General till he resigned in July 1805 in Galle Fort, the premises of the present assessment bearing No. 26, Church Street, Fort Galle.
Detail of Jonville’s formative days as the First Surveyor General of the said department is indeed very scarce. He executed a map on Ceylon titled ‘Lanka duvipe or Ceylon’. Ian J. Barrow in his book entitled Surveying and Mapping in Colonial Sri Lanka (1800-1900) published in 2008 by Vijitha Yapa Publications Sri Lanka states ‘that Jonville had a notion of drawing a general map of Ceylon but gives no indication where to find it’.
As R. Raven-Hart in his Travels in Ceylon 1700-1800 published by the ANCL in 1963 observes that the said map is found as page 154 of the Jonville’s manuscript reproduced in his book in between pages 90-91. Marie- Hèlène Estève and Philippe Fabry also reproduce the same in reduced form at page 10 in their recent work. Pethiyagoda cites S. Sivasundaram’s article on Tales of the land: British Geography and Kandyan resistance in Sri Lanka published in the Modern Asian Studies 2007 pages 1-41 that: “Jonville was handicapped, however by lack of technical equipment necessary for survey and cartography and had the perforce to innovate, for example by making levels by cutting glass tubes and filling them with water and scales by engraving on copper”.
The other most glaring omission by Marie- Hèlène Estève and Philippe Fabry which is adverted to by R. Raven-Hart is that the endorsement of Jonville found in the manuscript endorsed “presented by the author, Telicherry November 3, 1801”. This is possibly effaced with the whirligig of time. The index on the manuscript provided by R. Raven-Hart would have been food for thought for Marie- Hèlène Estève and Philippe Fabry in locating the pages of the original manuscript.
The translator Marie- Hèlène Estève has not stated that R. Raven-Hart in his above cited book has provided Jonville’s translation on Journal of Travel in the District of Galle and Maturè in 1800 in pages 73 to 88 and the notes of the same were published in pages 118 to 122 of the said book. Marie- Hèlène Estève in her translation does not identify some local place names of this journal. This leads the reader of the book astray; for example Berelentopane at page 134 R. Raven-Hart at page 83 identifies same as Beralapanatara. The authors have not at least provided an English translation of the 13 French documents which are annexure of the book for the benefit of the English readers.
The present translator of Kandelay Lake, Marie- Hèlène Estève has not identified the present place name as Kantalai Lake where R. Raven-Hart in his index at page 73 identifies it. The remarkable naturalist Jonville identifies his account of the country’s natural history with the then scientific nomenclature to support his detailed graphic description on the natural history of the then Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Introducing the present scientific nomenclature to this account of Jonville at least in foot notes or in endnotes would have made his ‘notions’ more scientifically lively to the world of science.
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