Matara

Thirty miles from Galle lies Matura. The town lies low, and the Lines that remain upon the left bank of the Blue river or Nil-Ganga (actually Nilwala Ganga), suffice to show that, under the Dutch, the fortifications were very extensive. On the right bank there is a small stone built fort of five bastions, that commands the bridges, which are connected by an islet, and the ferry. There are several excellent private houses, chiefly of Kabook, or iron-stone clay (defined in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as “a reddish gneissoid building-stone, soft when quarried but hardening by exposure to the air; laterite”) a District Courthouse, chapel, and barracks. The Cutchery (OED: “an office of administration, a court-house”) is an extensive building, and there are also a Wesleyan Mission-house and chapel.

 
The country around Matura is extremely fertile, that every article of fish is abundant and cheap; and no place is better supplied with fish, including the Seir Fish, Red Sur-mullett, Pomfret, Coal Fish, Rock Cod, Soles, Eels, Skate, Crabs, a species of Cray Fish, locally called Lobster, huge Prawns, and Shrimps.
 
Matura, long famous for its poultry, may be called the ‘Norwich of Ceylon’ for turkies (sic), with which the Galle and Colombo markets are supplied; but Koir (OED: “the prepared fibre of the husk of the coco-nut used for making ropes, cordage, and matting”), arrack, and coco-nuts are its principal staples.White zircon is here called “Matara diamond,” (there is an entry for this phrase including the preceding quotation by Bennett in the OED) by which name, and that of “Ceylon diamond,” many, in ignorance of the difference, have been misled to attribute to the island the production of the true diamond, a gem never yet known to have been ever found there.
 
With a geographical reversal, the southernmost tip of the island becomes the nearest point of land to the South Pole over the endless ocean that lies between this tropical idyll and the icy wastes. You can sit on the rocks near the lighthouse and gaze southwards across a world of water: let your imagination free.
 
(Content Source : Travel Sri Lanka Magazine)
(Image Source   : mysrilankaholidays)