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In fact, two centuries later Abouzeyd, an Arab, who wrote an account of the trade and productions of India, speaks of these shells by the name they still bear, which he states to be schenek ; but "schenek" is not an Arabic word, and is merely an attempt to spell the local term, chank, in Arabic characters.
A chank, in which the whorls, instead of running from left to right, as in the ordinary shell, are reversed, and run from right to left, is regarded with such reverence that a specimen formerly sold for its weight in gold, but one may now be had for four or five pounds. But the shell in question was most probably the chank, and Marallo was Mantotte, off which it is found in great numbers.
This tendency of particular localities to re-produce certain specialities of form and colour is not confined to the sea or to the instance of the chank shell. In the gardens which line the suburbs of Galle in the direction of Matura the stems of the coco-nut and jak trees are profusely covered with the shells of the beautiful striped Helix hamastoma.
The trade in shells is one of extreme antiquity in Ceylon. The Gulf of Manaar has been fished from the earliest times for the large chank shell, Turbinella rapa, to be exported to India, where it is still sawn into rings and worn as anklets and bracelets by the women of Hindustan.
Speaking of the "chank" shell, that is the name given in the East Indies to certain varieties of the voluta gravis, fished up by divers in the Gulf of Manaar, on the northwest coast of Ceylon. There are two kinds, payel and patty, the one red, the other white; the latter is of small value.
DARWIN says, that amongst the fossils of Patagonia, he found "a massive gigantic oyster, sometimes even a foot in diameter." Nat. BERTOLACCI mentions a curious local peculiarity observed by the fishermen in the natural history of the chank. Nor is there ever an instance of deviation from this singular law of nature. The Wallampory, or 'right-hand chanks, are found of both kinds."
"So you shall see it is as I have say." He shook his fists again at the mill. Its open windows vomited the staccato chatterings of the myriad looms. "It chews up the poor people. Hear its dam' teeth go chank chank chank!" "The Gallic imagination is always active," said Farr, joggling the key at the end of the cord and eyeing it with peculiar interest.
In the streets are multitudes of people, armed with bows and arrows; also men powerful as gods, who with their huge swords could cut asunder a tusk elephant at one blow. Elephants, horses, carts, and myriads of people are constantly passing and repassing. There are jugglers, dancers, and musicians of various nations, whose chank shells and other musical instruments are ornamented with gold.
At last the corn rustled, and footfalls sounded faintly in his ear, and Colwell crept up and whispered, "The bears are in! don't you hear 'em? They're movin' this way. There! hear 'em rattle the corn! There, there again, hear 'em snuffle and chank!" "I hear something," said Fabens. "That's 'um! Old Bruin has come with his wife and children. We'll give 'em a belly full.
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