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Three hundred lances then were couched, with pennons streaming gay; Three hundred shields were pierced through no steel the shock might stay; Three hundred hauberks were torn off in that encounter sore; Three hundred snow-white pennons were crimson-dyed in gore; Three hundred chargers wandered loose their lords were overthrown; The Christians cry 'St. James for Spain! the Moormen cry 'Mahoun!"
Thank 'e so gude cider as ever I tasted; an' doan't 'e tear an' rage, my son. What's the use?" "'Twould be use, though, if us all raged together." "But you won't get none to follow. 'Tis all talk. Duchy haven't got no bones to break or sawl to lose; an' moormen haven't got brains enough to do aught in the matter but jaw."
The Singhalese have ever been essentially an agricultural race, a small portion devoting themselves to such simple handicraft as life on the island demanded. They are not traders, even in our day. Moormen, Syrian Jews, and Parsees monopolize that occupation, and the few 'longshore sailors are all of the Tamil race.
"After a Singhalese has once embarked in gem digging," he said, "he is good for nothing else; henceforth he becomes a genuine loafer, ignoring all legitimate occupation, while contracting most undesirable habits and associations. He is generally employed at miserable wages by the Moormen in Colombo, though he is paid a premium when he finds and turns over a really good stone.
We planned our campaign that evening at dinner. Nov. 18. At daybreak I started Wallace off to Doolana to bring my old acquaintance the Rhatamahatmeya and the Moormen trackers. I felt confident that I could prevail upon him to accompany us to the limits of his district; this was all-important to our chance of sport, as without him we could procure no assistance from the natives.
The Moormen, in whose hands the trade almost entirely rests, are a set of confirmed knaves and adroit swindlers, whose cunning and dishonesty have become proverbial. If they cannot cheat a purchaser in any other way, they will slyly substitute a piece of worthless glass for a true stone at the last moment, after the bargain has been made, and then disappear.
Cingalese, Kanditons, Tamils from South India, and Moormen, with crimson caftans and shaven crowns, form the bulk of the crowds that throng its streets; but, besides these, there are Portuguese, Chinese, Jews, Arabs, Parsees, Englishmen, Malays, Dutchmen, and half-caste burghers, and now and then a veiled Arabian woman, or a Veddah, one of the aboriginal inhabitants of the island.
Such are mostly occupied by Parsees and Moormen, so that Black Town is not quite so "black" as might seem to the casual reader. The Moormen wear an impossible sort of hat, tall and brimless; others have sensible, broad-brimmed panamas, and some don the picturesque fez so universal in the East.
The men from Tuticorin were of the Parawa caste, and those hailing from Paumben were Moormen. The only Ceylon city contributing divers was Jaffna, whose men were of the fisher caste, said to be descendants of Arabs who settled sixty years ago at Jaffna.
A great hay crop gladdened the moormen, and Will, always intoxicated by a little fair fortune, talked much of his husbandry, already calculated the value of the aftermath, and reckoned what number of beasts he might feed next winter. "'Most looks as if I'd got a special gift wi' hay," he said to his mother on one occasion.
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