Street names: On the street where you live, lived a villain called Vystwyke
 

by S. Pathiravitana

Street names do have something about them. Witness what happened when some people tried to change the name of Dickman's Road. The residents of this semi fashionable quarter protested vehemently about the proposed change.

Anyway, who was Dickman and what was he? Very probably even the oldest residents may not know who he was and on what precise grounds he was honoured by having a busy road named after him. Well, if it was not sentiment that moved the residents, probably it was the land value, which was feared may drop precipitately with a change of name, any name for that matter

Hero or villain

For whatever the reason, people don't seem to like to get up one fine morning and find that they are living in the wrong street. And whatever the name and the heroics of the person being commemorated, the fact remains that you have developed some sort of attachment to the old place where you lived.

If I was born in Arbuthnot Street, for instance, which was in Colombo 8 and has now disappeared from the A - Z street guides, I would have preferred to remain an Arbuthnot-ite simply because of its outlandish nomenclature and the distinction you earn by wearing a name like that.

And however strange my preferences are there will always be some one to oppose and be at each other's throats when some change is made as I can see from what is happening in Galpotta Road where I once was a Galpot-ite.

I have no particular grievances with the name Galpotta, though there is nothing spectacular in its landscape to illuminate either its Gal or its potta. But to see that the name of a distinguished son of Kotte had replaced the romantic name of Galpotta must have come as a surprise to many.

I am merely recording this incident just to indicate what I said at the beginning of this piece that street names do matter to some people who have to live in those areas. But I also see that some seem indifferent to street names. I used to wonder how a street in Wellawatte has come to acquire the name of Pennyquick. Who or what was Pennyquick?

I have a faint recollection that was not how the name was once spelt when I read it first. In fact I stumbled over the spelling when I saw it, for it went something like this Penecuick Road which left me baffled. The spelling, I suspected, was like Welsh or Gaelic not English.

It is unlikely that anybody remembers either the different spellings or the history of this name, but I would like to hear something more about it from some knowledgeable source.

Another street name that has baffled me is Vystwyke Road in Colombo 15. At least about this street name I have been able to get some information. Vystwyke when he landed in Ceylon during the Dutch occupation as a Governor is said to have worn an eye patch over his right eye and boastfully said that a single eye was enough to govern a small country like Ceylon.

He was the man I found who got the Aluthmawatha Road built, quite a long road at that and qualifying to be among the longest roads in Colombo.

There was a problem getting stones to pave the new road because there was no road to bring cartloads of stones along. He then decided to bring down the stones from the Fort by passing them from hand to hand. The road was built for his convenience, it is said, so that it would enable him to get a grand view of the Colombo harbour from a little hill called Buona Vista.

He was a cruel ruler all in all. He wanted to take over a house occupied by a Lieutenant in his army because the man slighted him. He first killed the lieutenant and not content with that killed the owner of the house too.

Then he got the house that was vacated razed to the ground and erected a pillar with an inscription reminding people of the fate that would befall whoever opposed him.

When justice finally overtook Vystwyke, that's how the Dutch spell his name by the way, the pillar was removed and the land given back to the family of the owner of the house.

When the new house came up, which may be there even today close to the present Indian bank down Baillie Street, a plaque was placed on its wall with words in Dutch. Its English translation reads 'Destroyed by might/Restored by right'.

Vystwyke's legacy

What finally happened to Vystwyke was that he got the justice that people dream of for such monsters. His cruelties were reported to the headquarters in Batavia where the authorities decided to summon him.

There is no record of whether a trial was held but the punishment is on record: "He was recalled and sentenced to be broken alive on the wheel, his body to be quartered, and the quarters to be burned upon a pile, and the ashes thrown into the sea."

To come to the more pleasant activities of the Dutch, they were very interested in making their surroundings beautiful and pleasing. At the back of their minds was to make Colombo somewhat like their towns back home.

One way was to plant trees alongside the roads to provide both shade and colour. Laws were passed prohibiting the lopping and cutting of branches of these trees. A visitor to the Island at this period, Christop Schweitzer, has this to say about the Colombo Fort which was referred to by the Dutch as the Castle: "Within the Castle there are many pretty walks of nut trees set in an uniform order, but they bear no fruit, only red and white flowers; the streets are pleasant walks themselves, having trees on both sides and before the houses."

The Castle was well defended. There were about a dozen bastions put up to deal with any invasions from either land or sea. All that is left of them today are a few Dutch names like Delft and Leyden, San Sebastian, and St. John's Street.

The Dutch also made use of canals if not to beautify the place at least to help them in their transportation and in the long run it helped both. If you take a look at a road map of Colombo today you may see the canals running like slim, light blue ribbons from Grandpass to Dehiwala bypassing on their way San Sebastian and Diyawannawa in Kotte.

The canals may have contained purer water then than what we have today because picnics were organised at a place the Dutch called Paradise.

The spot is just opposite the junction of Silversmith Street and Sri Sangaraja Mawatha. And here, holiday-makers relaxed by bathing in the canals.

The name Paradise Road continued to point to this place even into our times. My curiosity took me down this road once to see what Paradise looked like and was I disappointed. It was now an open marsh with clothes hanging out for drying. Obviously washer men had taken over the place.

The Dutch seemed to have taken a greater interest in the Beira lake than the British. The network of canals they built may have been dependant on the Beira too. Adjoining the old Secretariat at Galle Face there is a circular spillway built in the Beira in the shape of a basin.

Beira blueprint

This may have been to maintain the level of water in the Beira Lake so that the network of canals linked to the lake may retain a certain balance of water. A memorial stone has been found on the side of the Beira close to the Fort Railway Station carrying an inscription in the following form:

De Beer, A. D. 1700 said to be the name of the Dutch engineer connected with the work on the Beira Lake.

Some of the street names given by the Dutch describe something of significance to the place. Bloemendhal Road, for instance, meant 'a vale of flowers' not very far from where Paradise was. This part of Colombo seems to have combined business with recreation.

Close to Grandpass the Dutch used to grow flowers and the place was named Orta fula, flower garden, and got called Malwatta in Sinhala. They also tried their hand at making silk, Orta sela, a silk garden, and experimented with silkworms that had been brought down from Japan by the Portuguese. From the silk came the name Sedawatta.

Kotahena is said to have got its name from the kottan trees that grew close to the sea. The Portuguese called it Kottanchina. The Dutch called it Korteboam meaning short trees because they found that the spray from the sea close by had hindered the growth of the trees. And the British are said to have anglicised it into Cotton China.

But people seem to have mercifully ignored that and it has failed to stick. Street names around Hulftsdorf, meaning the 'village of Hulft' named after the Dutch General Hulft (who lost his life in the siege of 1656) seem to have been named after the trees planted around here like Masan gas and Damba or Jambu. They have been anglicised into Messenger Street and Dam Street today.

Having come to the end of my story I still like to know why we wish to have the name of a notorious villain like Vystwyke perpetuated. Do we really care about street names, or is it that we just don't care what name it is as long as our vanities are not hurt?