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The Singhalese profess to distinguish a great many kinds, of which they say not more than one half have as yet been scientifically identified ; but so cautiously do serpents make their appearance, that the surprise of persons long resident is invariably expressed at the rarity with which they are to be seen; and from my own journeys through the jungle, often of from two to five hundred miles, I have frequently returned without observing a single snake.
When you Christians can agree among yourselves as to which of your many doctrines is the right one, it will be time enough for you to try to teach us to discard a faith which our fathers have believed for thousands of years." More than one intelligent Singhalese has expressed himself to this effect in our presence.
This kind of attention, together with the occasional application of oil, gives rise to the deeper black which the hides of the latter present. Amongst the native Singhalese, however, a singular preference is evinced for elephants that exhibit those flesh-coloured blotches which occasionally mottle the skin of an elephant, chiefly about the head and extremities.
The natives regard its flesh as a sovereign specific for rheumatic affections. Asiat. The Singhalese have a belief that the hornbill never resorts to the water to drink; but that it subsists exclusively by what it catches in its prodigious bill while rain is falling. This they allege is associated with the incessant screaming which it keeps up during showers.
Among the Singhalese a girl at her first menstruation is confined to a room, where she may neither see nor be seen by any male. After being thus secluded for two weeks she is taken out, with her face covered, and is bathed by women at the back of the house. Near the bathing-place are kept branches of any milk-bearing tree, usually of the jak-tree.
And certain it is that frequenters of the forest with whom I have conversed, whether European or Singhalese, are consistent in their assurances that they have never found the remains of an elephant that had died a natural death.
The Kandyans have a strong prejudice against engaging in trade, and indeed dislike to mix at all with strangers. They therefore, when able, perch their residences in the most out-of-the-way and inaccessible positions. The latter are the Highlanders, while the Singhalese are the Lowlanders of Ceylon.
It would almost seem as though the Singhalese of the present day could not belong to the same race as the people who built Anuradhapura before Christ was born. Many of the prominent Christian sects have churches and missionary establishments in the island. It has long been a popular missionary field with several denominations, more particularly in the northern part.
The sacred books of the Singhalese are even now inscribed on silver plates, particularised by Jeremiah as an export of Tarshish. Apes and pea-fowls are still found in great numbers, while ivory must at that time have been even more abundant than at present.
Such are some of the great improvements which have accrued under English rule. This statement is made as a simple matter of fact, not as an argument that England has a legitimate right on the island, any more than she has in India. But the prosperity of the Singhalese is no less a fact, and very pleasant to record.
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