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either party, but the woman is quite as much esteemed by her next lover as if he had found her in a state of virginity.

"After the parties have agreed to marry, the first step is, that the man present his bride with the wedding-clothes, which indeed are not of the most costly kind: they consist of a piece of cloth, six or seven yards in length, for the use of the bride, and another piece of cloth to be placed on the bed. It gives us a striking idea of the total want of industry among the Ceylonese, and their extreme state of poverty, that even these simple marriage presents are frequently beyond the ability of the man to purchase, and that he is often obliged to borrow them for the occasion from some of his neighbours.

"The wedding presents are presented by the bridegroom in person, and the following night he is entitled to lie with the bride. Upon this occasion is appointed the day for bringing her home, and celebrating the wedding with festivities. On that day he and his relations repair to the bride's house, carrying along with them what they are able to contribute to the marriage-feast. The bride and bridegroom, in the presence of this assembly, eat out of one dish to denote that they are of the same rank. Their thumbs are then tied together; and the ceremony concludes by the nearest relations, or the priest, when he is present, cutting them asunder. This, how ever, is accounted a less binding ceremony, and indeed scarcely intended for continuance. When it is desired to make the marriage as firm and indissoluble as the nature of their manners will allow, the parties are joined together with a long piece of cloth, which is folded

1803.

several times round both their bodies; and water is then poured upon them by the priest, who al ways officiates at this ceremony although rarely at the former. After the marriage ceremony, whether the stricter or the less binding one is performed, the parties pass the night at the bride's house; and in the morning the husband brings her home, accompanied by her friends, who carry with them provisions for another feast. In bringing home the bride a strange ancient custom is observed; the bride is always obliged to march before her husband, and never to be out of his sight by the way. The traditionary reason for this practice is, that a man on this occasion once happening to walk foremost, his wife was carried off from him before he was aware; a circumstance not at all unlikely to happen more than once among a people who think so lightly of the marriage ties. The weddingday is always looked upon as a time of particular festivity; and those who are able to afford it, never fail to have the feasts accompanied with music and dancing; the merriment is often protracted, and certain nuptial songs continue to be carolled the whole night long.

The portion given with the daughter is in proportion to the ability of the parents; and if the young couple are not in circumstances to maintain themselves, they still continue to reside with their parents. If the young people find after marriage that their dispositions do not agree, they separate without ceremony; only the woman carries with her the portion she brought, in order to make her as good a match for her next husband. Both men and wo

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men often marry and divorce several times in this manner, before they have found a partner, with whom they can reconcile themselves to spend the remainder of their days.

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"Owing to the early intercourse of the women with the other sex, for they are in general even regularly married at twelve, they soon lose the appearance of youth, and old and haggard in their looks immediately after they pass twenty. The climate, indeed, conduces much to this early decay; and they expose themselves so much to the sun, that were it not for the quantities of cocoa-nut oil with which they anoint themselves profusely, their skins would soon crack and break out in blotches.

"The Cinglese women are much more pleasant in their manners, and, I may add, more elegant in their persons than those of the other Indian nations. Their extreme cleanliness is a trait which renders them particularly agreeable to an Englishman, although he finds it something difficult to reconcile himself to the strong exhalations of the cocoa-nut-oil.

"The Ceylonese, like other inhabitants of warm climates, are particularly fond of bathing, and often plunge into the water several times a day. In this gratification, how ever, they are often interrupted by alligators, of whom they entertain the greatest terror; and are obliged to have recourse to precautions against this dreadful enemy, by inclosing with a strong paling a little spot on the side of a pond or river, sufficiently large to allow them room to wash and refresh themselves.

"Gravity, that constant characteristic of the savage state, still continues among the Ceylonese in

a much greater degree than might be expected from their stage of civilisation. This is probably owing to the gloomy superstitious fears which they imbibe from their infancy, and which continue to embitter their existence ever after. Sports and diversions are almost entirely unknown among them. None of them attempt those tricks and feats of activity for which the natives of Hindostan are so fa mous; for all the jugglers, danə cers, and conjurors, who are at any time found at Ceylon, are universally from the continent. The dispirited and oppressed state under which the Cinglese have so long groaned, may indeed be supposed to have among them extinguished the practice of their original amusements; but during the whole time of my stay on the island, and after the minutest inquiries, I never could learn of any diversions in use among the Candians. It is indeed to be supposed that in their more flourishing state they had, like other nations, some recreations for their leisure hours; and Mr. Knox records one or two which in his time still continued in use at new-years and particular festivals; but their perpetual contests with the Portuguese and Dutch, joined to the tyranny of their own internal government, have probably succeeded, along with the gloom of their superstition, in destroying those glimmerings of humane and social enjoyment, which were just beginning to break through the dark ferocity of barbarism.

"During the wet season, the Ceylonese are subject to a variety of diseases. Every man is here his own physician, and the mode of cure practised is of course_very simple. A plaister of herbs or of cow

dung

dung is universally applied to the part affected; and I have seen the same remedy applied to a man in a high fever, when his whole body was daubed over with this ointment. Leprosy appears to be very prevalent among them, and the streets of Columbo swarm with Cinglese beggars labouring under this distressing disease. I have seen some of these objects with their skin party-coloured, half black and half white; for this disease leaves white blotches and spots in all those places of the skin where it breaks out, and it is not uncommon to see one limb completely white while the other retains its natural black colour.

"The disease which particularly excites their apprehension is the small-pox. It is looked upon as the immediate instrument of God's vengeance, and therefore they do not venture to use any charms or incantations for their recovery, as they are accustomed to do in all other diseases. If any one dies of it he is looked upon as accursed, and even his body is denied the rites of burial. It is carried out to some unfrequented place, and there left with a few bushes or branches of trees thrown over it. It is to be hoped that an intercourse with our countrymen will in time do away these gloomy notions of fatality, and that the effect of remedies on the Europeans will induce the natives also to adopt them. It would be an object worthy the attention of government to cause to be introduced among them the inoculation for the cow-pox, which has lately been discovered for the deliverance of mankind from a most fatal pestilence. The governor might insist that all the children within our jurisdiction should undergo this operation.

The language of the Ceylonese

may appear the best clue by which to trace out their origin; but it only serves to involve our conjectures in greater obscurity. Their language appears almost completely peculiar to this island. It is spoken by none of the Malabars

or other nations on the continent of India; nor can any of them be instructed in it without considerable difficulty. If I might be allowed to offer an opinion on a subject that requires the profound investigation of the learned, I should say that it appears to me most nearly allied to the Maldivian. 1 had an opportunity of observing the similarity both in this and in other respects between these people and the Ceylonese, while I was stationed at Columbo; it being a custom with the king of the Maldive islands to send an ambassador yearly with presents to our governor at Ceylon, in order to maintain a friendly understanding with us. The Maldivians of his retinue both in shape, complexion, and habit, approached much nearer to the Ceylonese than to any of the Malabar race: and their language appeared to me to follow the same rule.

"There are in fact two dialects of the Ceylonese language, differing very considerably from each other, and having each a separate grammar. The poetic or court language is also styled the Candian Sanscrit, or more properly the Paulee, or Mangada. This dia- ' lect, which is retained in those parts of the interior, where the language may be supposed to be preserved in its greatest purity, contains a considerable mixture of Arabic, and is accounted the most elegant as well as the most smooth and sonorous. The learn

ed will judge of the inference to be drawn

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drawn from the Arabic forming so considerable a portion of the Ceylonese language in those parts where it is spoken in its original purity. The current opinion among the natives is, that Arabic is their original language, and that some mixture of the Sanscrit was introduced by a colony who came over by Adam's bridge from the continent of India. Among the Cinglese on the coasts, the vulgar dialect, distinguished by the name of the Cinglese, is spoken: it has been greatly corrupted by the introduction of foreign words, and that melody and force which is attributed to the language of the interior is here no longer discernible. If I may judge from the impression made upon me during my residence on the island, the Cinglese spoken on the coasts is much inferior to any of the other Indian languages which I have heard.

The hyperbolical strain of compliment and adulation which is common to all the Asiatic nations, is found no where in greater per fection than in the island of Ceylon. There is here a degree of punctilious minuteness with which the phraseology employed is exact ly adjusted to the rank of the person addressed, that altogether astonishes an European. There is no impropriety which a man can be guilty of more unpardonable in their eyes, than addressing a superior in language that is only fit for an equal or an inferior.

"There is something very peculiar in the pronunciation of the Ceylonese. They seem to steal out the first part of the sentence in such a manner as scarcely to catch the attention, and then dwell with a loud and long accent on the concluding syllables. They are particularly fond of closing with an

emphatic ye or ah, which forms the last syllable of a great number of their words.

"They divide their time nearly as we do, only their year com mences on the 28th of March. The manner in which they make allowance for leap-year, and the odd portions of time which are not reduceable to the regular calcula tion, is by beginning their year a day sooner or later, or in other words by adding a day to the former year. The first month of the year they name Wasachmahayé, the second Pomahayé, and so on; every one ending in the favourite syllable ayé. Their months are, like ours, divided into weeks of seven days. The first day of the week, which corresponds with our Sunday, they call Fridahe, then, Sandudahé, Onghorudahé, Bodalahé, Braspotindahé, Secouradahé, Henouradahé. Wednesday and Saturday are the days on which they perform their religious ceremonies. The day, which is reckoned from sun-rise to sun-set, is divided into fifteen hours, and the night into as many, which forms a pretty regular divi sion of time, as the length of the day and night varies very little in this latitude.

"In their state of society, the exact measurement of time is not of particular consequence, and therefore we find them very little solicitous about dealing out scrupulously an article of which they do not understand the value. It does not appear that before the arrival of Europeans on the island the Ceylonese had contrived even the rudest species of dial. On any particular occasion, they employed a vessel with a hole in the bottom that let out the water with which it was filled in one hour according to their division. This rude in

strument

strument was sufficient for all their purposes; and was even seldom employed unless at court ceremonials.

"The learning of the Ceylonese consists chiefly in some pretended skill in astrology. It appears, indeed, that they were formerly possessed of some literature, as well as of some refinement in the arts, At Adam's peak, their principal place of worship, and in the ruins of some of their temples, certain inscriptions have been discovered which they are now unable to decipher. The Dutch repeatedly sent some of the most ingenious Malabars, as well as persons from the various continental tribes, to examine these inscriptions; but, although they were accompanied by the natives, and assisted by all their traditions, no interpretation could be effected. In the neighbourhood of Sittivacca 1 had an opportunity to see several of these inscriptions among the ruins of a pagoda,

"To read and write are no ordinary accomplishments among the natives of Ceylon. These arts are among the Candians chiefly confined to the learned men of the sect called Gonies, who are retained by the king to execute all the writings of state, and those which respect religious affairs. The Arabic is the character which they employ on these occasions.

"For writing, as they do not un derstand the art of making paper, they employ the leaf of the talipot tree. From these leaves, which are of an immense size, they cut out slips from a foot to a foot and a half long, and about a couple of inches broad. These slips are smoothed, and all excrescences pared off with a knife, and are then, without any other preparation, ready to be used. A fine point

ed steel pencil, like a bodkin, and set in a wooden or ivory handle, ornamented according to the taste of the owner, is employed to write or rather engrave their letters or characters on these talipot slips which are very thick and tough. In order to render the characters more visible and distinct, they rub them over with oil mixed with charcoal reduced to powder, and this has the effect also of rendering them so permanent that they can never be effaced. When one slip is not sufficient to contain all that they intend to write on any parti cular subject, they string several together by a piece of twine passed through them, and attach them to a board in the same way as we file newspapers.

"Palm leaves are sometimes employed for the same purpose; but those of the talipot, both from their breadth and thickness, are preferred. Few of the natives, and those only of the higher order who have much connexion and long ac counts to keep with the Europeans, employ any other materials in writing than those which I have just described. There is also a sort of paper, made of the bark of a tree, sometimes used.

"I have seen several of those talipot books or files, called by the natives olioes, richly ornamented and bound in thin lacquered boards of ivory, or even silver and gold. They are particularly dexterous and accurate in their mode of writing. In those letters or dispatches which were sent by the king to the Dutch government, the monarch seemed particularly anxious to dis play his magnificence in the richness and splendour with which they were executed. The writing was inclosed in leaves of beaten gold in the shape of a cocoa-tree leaf. This

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