Perfect Humanity.

697 in London, and also in Liverpool, by the munificence of an individual. The pastimes of races, running in sacks, and dancing, which are being revived at harvest homes and similar gatherings, show that the universal taste for trials of strength and for humorous games is not wanting even to this grave generation; and the success which has attended the revival of old English sports at Wenlock, under the name of Olympian games, is very encouraging. Though the returns of mortality are not as complete as might be desired, yet, under the able interpretation of Dr. Van, they give us broad and intelligible results. In fixing the aim to which we should direct our efforts, it is desirable to ascertain as far as we can the proportion of the annual mortality which is preventible by means within our reach."

As to longevity, there are always those ready to say there were giants in their day. There always have been, for we love heroes; their example is beneficial, and if we haven't got them we create them. Every family has its hero; some grandfather, who was never in bed after five in the morning, killed his brace of birds right and left from his pony when he was seventy-five, and amused himself with dragging the garden-roller over the lawn on his eighty-fifth birthday. But till Lepsius and Bunsen have settled their little differences about the Egyptian dynasties, we take leave to think that Methuselah was a hero who died after showing signs of decay in much about the same time and of the same kind as the stem of Jesse. There is, we admit, a sad propensity to see a rainbow through the tears that dim the vision of the past, which makes the foreground of life look like a rocky, weedy path, full of common objects; but those who talk of the decadence of the human race, must have their mind's eye afflicted with the annulus senilis.

Had it been in the spirit of humanity to be content with the companionship of the flocks, on the slopes of the Himalaya or in the fertile paradise of Mesopotamia, with the herb and the mess of pottage, Man would never have thought of an Iran of all delights, nor explored the regions of the western sky to join in the strife of tongues and the struggle of commerce. Advanced as society now is, and complex as the conditions of modern civilization are become, the old maxim of self-preservation is more and more asserting its vitality; and people are beginning to see that in applying their knowledge to maintain the health of the masses, they are protecting themselves and benefitting their own property. As was so well said by the French moralist, long before Hygiène was thought of "Conserve-toi; Instruis-toi; Modère-toi;-vis pour tes semblables, afin qu'ils vivent pour toi ;" and by Michel Levy, writing solely from the health point of view, "L'Hygiène, ou plutot la Civilization dont il est une face, se résume en deux mots-Moralité, Aisance."

Man, without his intellect, is, from first to last, more helpless than the brutes and the trees. He is surrounded with the common agencies destructive of organic life, and is obliged to keep up a perpetual state of antagonism with Nature, his best friend. 3 D

VOL. II.

In this contest, he is certain to be beaten in the end; but if in his little span-his busy day-he can pile one stone upon that Pelion from which his race is to step to equality with the gods, and leave his way-post as a guide to others of his clan, he is content to cry "Excelsior!" and breathe his last.

TENNENT'S CEYLON.*

EVERY one who has paid the slightest attention to history must be aware of the extreme difficulty of preparing a fair historical account of the rise and progress of any nation, or even of writing a reliable story of a single era in its anuals. It is no easy task for an historian to lift the veil of time-to inquire into the motives of a people's action at any period of their annals; nay, even to state in brief compass the facts from which we are to infer the motives, and to gather the thoughts of past generations of men to weigh conflicting statements, and to present as truth, not what he wishes, but what he ought to believe; and entering upon his work with pure and philosophic spirit, to offer to other minds rigid historical data, and evidences as to former eras, which they may use in explanation of the national condition at the present day. Difficult as is the composition of history when undertaken in regard to our own country, and to those comparatively limited periods of time, during which we possess not only dynastic and legal records, but also a national literature from which national character and customs may be gleaned, it is infinitely harder to write the chronicles of an eastern island, the home of dissimilar races which have existed as a nation for three-and-twenty centuries, and played no mean part in story during the larger portion of the time, and which, though possessing dynastic records of unrivalled age and unquestionable authenticity, have but scattered and indirect evidences to offer as to the condition of the mass of its population; and scarce a tradition as to the early past, whether relating to the polity of the monarchs, the use of civil and judicial customs, or the mutual connections by which people of widely-dissevered habits and pursuits were ever united into the

*Ceylon; an Acccount of the Island, Physical, Historical, and Topogra phical, with Notices of its Natural History, Antiquities, and Productions. Illustrated by Maps, Plans, and Drawings. By Sir J. Emerson Tennent, K.C.S, LL.D., &c., 2 vols. 8vo. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859.

Sources of Singhalese History.

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semblance of a single State. When we inquire into the condition of Ceylon at different periods, we find, as it were, perennial commerce upon its coasts, and intermittent war and peace in the interior of the island:-races of widely-dissevered types dwelling within its borders :-now, the peaceful pursuit of agriculture, under the joint protection of the priests and monarchs ;-anon, the recurrence of barbarism, and the devastations of war:-now, the tale of eight centuries of growing prosperity; anon, the raids and forays of restless invaders :-now, the subjugation of the whole island to the sway of a single king;-anon, the division of the government amongst petty princes, and the direful tale of internecine dissensions;-but nowhere do we find direct evidences as to the growth and progress of popular institutions, or satisfactory information as to the establishment of the relations which bound together kings and people. The Mahawanso, the great national chronicle, was drawn up in obedience to royal command, apparently with the main object of preserving a record of the dynastic successions and religious changes, which took place in Ceylon. Like all other Indian chronicles, it tells the story of the kings and priests, who lived and held divided sway upon the island; but its allusions to the condition of the Singhalese people are few and scattered, and are inserted rather as evidences of each sovereign's greatness as a king, than as records of his people's happiness as a nation. If, then, Sir Emerson Tennent had been compelled to trust to this national chronicle in the preparation of his historical notices of Ceylon, he might have written, it is true, a record of dynastic facts, and of Buddhistic influence; but he must have failed alike to breathe life into the story of the island, and to add to our power of tracing the real history of the people.

Fortunately, however, for the success of his work, there exist ancient chronicles of great value, though of more modern date than the Mahawanso, from which he has been able to gather additional facts as to the state of the island in ancient and modern times. Moreover, Ceylon was a home of commerce even in the heroic ages and many nations, in succession, have been brought into contact with its customs and its people. The aspect of the island, "its religion, its antiquities, its productions, have been described as well by the classic Greeks as by those of the Lower Empire; by the Romans; by the writers of China, Burmah, India and Cashmir; by the geographers of Arabia and Persia; by the mediaeval voyagers of Italy and France; by the annalists of Portugal and Spain; by the merchant adventurers of Holland, and by the travellers and topographers of Great Britain." Hence, scattered allusions to Ceylon are to be found in the literature of numerous nations: and by collating these with the existing Singhalese annals; by comparing the notices of the habits and customs of the people with the allusions to similar subjects in the native chronicles; by never taking for granted national institutions,

except when he found it impossible to trace their rise and progress; and by supplying skilfully condensed details as to every historical subject of inquiry into which he could enter, Sir Emerson Tennent has been enabled to prepare not only a view of the dynastic succession of the Singhalese monarchy, but also a luminous account of the various races which have existed upon the island, the extent of its cultivation and civilization at various periods, the nature of the Buddhist religion and its province in promoting the early interests of the Singhalese kingdom, and the effects of the past upon the state of the present population. Moreover, he has brought down the story of Ceylon to the present day, and by condensing the history of the Portuguese, Dutch and English periods, and contrasting the effects of the policy of each upon the native character, he has supplied a want from which, as he tells us, he himself suffered inconvenience during his official connection with the island. Not content with his historical inquiries, he has collected full and reliable information as to the physical geography of Ceylon, has grappled with established errors in regard to its geological formation, and has prepared a manual of its zoology, entomology, and conchology, based on his own observations, and supplemented by the information of Dr. Templeton and other scientific friends. To these he has added a section on the habits of the elephant in freedom and captivity, wherein he combines the strictest scientific observation with the determination to remove long-current popular fallacies, and the thorough enjoyment of scenes of adventure in the Singhalese forests, where he pursued his inquiries with unfaltering zeal.

Though the mere mention of the subjects treated of in his "Ceylon" is sufficient to inspire curiosity to examine its pages, it is no easy matter to determine the mode of treatment to be adopted in noticing the book in order to do bare justice to its ability and research. We shall defer our notice of the physical and topographical sections to a later portion of our article, and departing from the arrangement of subjects adopted by the author, we shall first present a summary of the historical information which we find collected and condensed from all available

sources.

Though notices of Ceylon under some of the varied designations which serve to prove the wide-spread fame of the island occur at very early periods; and though, as already mentioned, there is reason to believe that it was the home of commerce in the heroic ages, the Mahawanso adopts the comparatively modern date of 543 B.C., as the year of the conquest of the island by Wijayo, and as the starting-point of the dynastic story which it tells. Long prior to that date the island had been colonized by a branch of the same stock which had settled in the Dekkan: and the aborigines, so planted, had lived and flourished as simple foresters whose food was the produce of the chase, and the indigenous fruit

First Conquest of the Island.

701

of the soil, and whose religion was a species of demon-worship, the traces of which survive to the present day. Nearly a century before the landing of Wijayo, Gotama, the last of the Hindu Buddhas, was born; and thrice during his life had he visited. the island, to sow the seeds of the subsequent national faith; but the traces of his pious labours had been all but obliterated, and demon-worship had re-asserted its sway over the minds of the aborigines, even prior to the commencement of the historical period. All is conjecture as to the extent of the aboriginal population, and as to the districts in which they dwelt. But looking at the physical features of the island, it is probable that they lived in the fertile plains to the north of the Kandyan chain of hills, from which part of them retreated to the south-eastern corner of the island after the landing of Wijayo. The first hero of the Mahawanso,

"the discarded son of one of the petty sovereigns in the valley of the Ganges effects a landing with a handful of his followers in the vicinity of the modern Putlam. Here he married a daughter of one of the native chiefs, and having speedily made himself master of the island by her influence, he established his capital at Tamana-Neura, and founded a dynasty which for nearly eight centuries retained supreme authority in Ceylon.

"The people whom he mastered with so much facility are described in the sacred books as Yakkos, or 'demons,' and Nagas, or 'snakes;' designations which the Buddhist historians are supposed to have employed in order to mark their contempt for the uncivilized aborigines, in the same manner as the aborigines in the Dekkan were denominated goblins and demons by the Hindus, from the fact that, like the Yakkos of Ceylon, they, too, were demon-worshippers. The Nagas, another section of the same superstition, worshipped the Cobra-de-Capello as an emblem of the destroying power. They appear to have chiefly inhabited the northern and western coasts of Ceylon, and the Yakkos the interior, and, notwithstanding their alleged barbarism, both had organized some form of government, however rude. The Yakkos had a capital which they called Lanka-pura, and the Nagas a king, the possession of whose throne of gems was disputed by the rival sovereign of a neighbouring kingdom. So numerous were the followers of the gloomy idolatry of the time, that they gave the name of Naga dipo, the Island of Serpents,' to the portion of country which they held, in the same manner that Rhodes and Ceylon severally acquired the ancient designation of Ophiusa, from the fact of their being the residence of the Ophites, who introduced serpent-worship into Greece.

"But whatever may have been the peculiarities of religion which designated the aborigines from their conquerors, the attention of Wijayo was not diverted from his projects of colonization by any anxiety to make converts to his own religious belief. The earliest cares of himself and his followers were directed to implant civilization, and two centuries were permitted to elapse before the first effort was made to supersede the popular worship by the inculcation of a more intellectual faith.'

"Whatever may have been the first intentions of Wijayo, his subsequent policy was rather that of an agriculturist than of an apostle. Finding the country rich and fertile, he invited merchants to come and take possession of it. He dispersed his followers to form settlements over the island, and addressed himself to render his 'dominions habitable for men.' He treated the subjugated race of Yakkos with a disdain referable less to pride