Swami Rock, also known locally as Lover’s Leap, on account of a Dutch official’s daughter, Francina Van Reede, who threw herself off the rock after watching her unfaithful husband desert her by sea. Although her sui­cide attempt was unsuccessful, and she went on to marry for a second time eight years after her near-fatal fall, her father erected a pillar to mark the incident. At the end of the spit stands a Hindu temple, which contains a carving recovered by divers from an older temple destroyed and thrown into the sea by the Portuguese in 1624.

Inside the portals of the fort is a large residence known as Wellington House -so called because in 1799 Arthur Wellesley stayed in Trincomalee to rest and recover from a bout of malaria after leading troops into battle against local forces in south India. He found his billet so comfortable that he missed the boat to take him home. Since the ship sank in theGulf of Aden with the loss of all hands. It was a fortunate mishap.Wellesley subsequently became the Duke of Wellington.

The Mahaweli Ganga, Sri Lanka’s longest river, begins at Adam’s Peak and finally reaches the sea about 12 km (7 miles) south of the town at the scenic Koddiyar Bay. Ferries sail three times a day across the bay to the town of Muthur. One of the older inhabitants may show you the site of Knox Tree. A stone inscription beneath the tree once read: “This is White Man’s tree, under which Robert Knox, captain of the ship Ann, was captured AD 1660. Knox was held captive by the Kandyan king for 19 years. This stone was placed here in 1893.” The Robert Knox referred to here was the father of the young seaman who later related his tale of imprisonment by Rajasinha II in his Historical Relation of Ceylon. It is thought that this book became the inspiration behind Daniel Defoe’s castaway novel, Robinson Crusoe. If you head southeast to Toppur you will come across the ancient Buddhist site of Seruwawila, built in the 3rd-century BC by the Sinhalese King Kavan­tissa to enshrine the front collarbone of the Buddha.