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This is a Singhalese watering-place, the Saratoga of the island, the one popular health resort of the wealthy natives, as well as of strangers and English officials whose headquarters are on the sea coast.
One could not but imagine how the little fellow must have been made to suffer during the worse than useless operation, which is, even to a hardened adult, little short of slow agony. This instance struck the author as being the more remarkable because the Singhalese and almost all savage or semi-civilized races are found to be remarkably kind to their offspring, even as wild animals are.
After our position fix, I reentered the lounge, and when our bearings were reported on the chart, I saw that we were off the island of Ceylon, that pearl dangling from the lower lobe of the Indian peninsula. I went looking in the library for a book about this island, one of the most fertile in the world. Sure enough, I found a volume entitled Ceylon and the Singhalese by H. C. Sirr, Esq.
The Singhalese assert that when it has swallowed a deer, or any animal of similarly inconvenient bulk, the python draws itself through the narrow aperture between two trees, in order to crush the bones and assist in the process of deglutition. The Aspidura has been known to naturalists for many years ; the Haplocercus of Ceylon has only recently been described by Dr.
There are still some tribes in Ceylon who reverence the serpent as an emblem, and who actually devote temples to them, as the Hindus have done to bulls and monkeys for ages. The Veddahs are considered to be utter barbarians, but we very much doubt if many of their customs are any more barbaric than some which prevail among the Singhalese.
The Singhalese king besought their assistance, which having afforded, they began in 1518 to fortify themselves in Colombo and Galle, and finally possessed themselves of the greater part of the sea-coast, shutting up the King of Kandy in the interior. We, however, became involved, as had our predecessors, in hostilities with the King of Kandy, and this led to the capture of his capital in 1803.
At this point the Singhalese said that the natives told him that it was possible to ford the Perak, but that the mahout said that the elephant was a "diver," and would probably dive, but that there was no danger to us except of getting very wet.
A very humble class of Moormen, Malays, Singhalese, and Tamils, together with Syrian Jews and the like, a mixed and motley population, constitute the larger portion of the community in the Pettah, but there are some buildings, shops, bazaars, and residences of a better class than those we have described.
In the Hastisilpe, a Singhalese work which treats of their management, the marks of inferior breeding are said to be "eyes restless like those of a crow, the hair of the head of mixed shades; the face wrinkled; the tongue curved and black; the nails short and green; the ears small; the neck thin, the skin freckled; the tail without a tuft, and the fore-quarter lean and low:" whilst the perfection of form and beauty is supposed to consist in the "softness of the skin, the red colour of the mouth and tongue, the forehead expanded and hollow, the ears broad and rectangular, the trunk broad at the root and blotched with pink in front; the eyes bright and kindly, the cheeks large, the neck full, the back level, the chest square, the fore legs short and convex in front, the hind quarter plump, and five nails on each foot, all smooth, polished, and round.
The opening of roads and the clearing of the mountain forests of Kandy for the cultivation of coffee, have forced the animals to retire to the low country, where again they have been followed by large parties of European sportsmen; and the Singhalese themselves, being more freely provided with arms than in former times, have assisted in swelling the annual slaughter.
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