Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c7.72

c7.72

These caps are no longer worn, and were already out of fashion in the eighteenth century. Their appearance is illustrated on Plate XXX., in figure 3. I do not know what the knitted caps made by Knox and his fellow-prisoners in such quantities (Knox, p. 129) were like, probably there are none of these in existence now. It is now usual, and probably was so in the eighteenth century also, for any but officers on duty, to wear no hat, or only a kerchief arranged turband-wise; or in some districts, when engaged in field work, enormous hats of bamboo leaf (baṭa kola toppiẏa) or smaller low-crowned hats of plaited grass.