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Ceylon, however, is very productive and prosperous. Surrounded by the sea, it is free from Indian droughts and famines. Its people are stalwart and loyal. The English language is fast becoming the easiest method of communication between Cingalese and Tamils, Hindus and Malays. Colombo is really a European city, as large as Rochester, with noble public buildings and lovely parks.
It is in fact one of the most powerful and interesting forms which Hinduism has assumed and it has even attracted the sympathetic interest of Christians. The fervour of its utterances, the appeals to God as a loving father, seem due to the temperament of the Tamils, since such sentiments do not find so clear an expression in other parts of India.
The forces were made up of large drafts from all the provinces Canarese and Telugus of the frontier, Mysoreans and Malabarese from the west and centre, mixed with the Tamils from the remoter districts to the south; each detachment under its own local leaders, and forming part of the levies of the temporary provincial chieftain appointed by the crown.
But the glare which came from the torches which several of the Tamils had affixed to their spears revealed to us no view of the face of the one sitting there, for, over it, to prevent this, was a hideous mask, somewhat similar to that which exorcists wear in many Eastern countries.
The glossy genette , the "Civet" of Europeans, is common in the northern province, where the Tamils confine it in cages for the sake of its musk, which they collect from the wooden bars on which it rubs itself. Edrisi, the Moorish geographer, writing in the twelfth century, enumerates musk as one of the productions then exported from Ceylon. Jauberts's translation, t. ii. p. 72.
Before Dutugemunu came to the throne the Tamils had usurped all power and made one of their own men, called Elala, king, and the young prince, exiled from his capital city, met them in battle outside the walls. He fought with great bravery, and in the end the issue of the day was decided by a single combat between him and Elala, both mounted on huge elephants. That must have been a fight indeed!
But our available documents indicate that the Buddhism of southern India was almost entirely Hinayanist, analogous to that of Ceylon and not very sympathetic to the Tamils. They found the king of the former a pious Buddhist but the latter was governed by an Ephthalite chieftain, perhaps Mihiragula himself, who was a worshipper of demons.
Jaffna is over two hundred miles from Colombo by land, and is peopled mostly by Tamils, who have a record connected with their settlement here reaching back for many centuries. The population of the entire peninsula is recorded as being about two hundred thousand, to meet whose spiritual wants there are said to be three hundred Hindu temples in this northern province.
Instances of this widespread belief found among the Tamils of Ceylon as well as in Europe are quoted from various authors by Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, p. 278, and Moll, Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 700.
On my arrival at Aripo, the pearl-divers, under the orders of their Adapanaar, put to sea, and commenced the examination of the banks. The persons engaged in this calling are chiefly Tamils and Moors, who are trained for the service by diving for chanks.
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