often men incapable of bearing fatigue or climate; ignorant of every trade, and inferior even in teaching and preaching powers to their rivals. It is no easy matter to spread Christianity among the Cinghalese, the inventors of Buddhism, the most ancient and most widely spread of all the religions of the world. Every Buddhist firmly believes in the potential perfection of man, and is incapable of understanding the ideas of original sin and redemption; and a Cinghalese Buddhist-passionless himself cannot comprehend the passionate worship that Christianity requires. The Catholics, however, do not neglect the Eastern field for missionary labour. Four of their bishops from Cochin China and Japan were met by me in Galle, upon their way to Rome.

Our drive was brought to an end by a visit to the old Dutch quarter—a careful imitation of Amsterdam; indeed, one of its roads still bears the portentous Batavian name of Dam Street. Their straight canals, and formal lines of trees, the Hollanders have carried with them throughout the world; but in Columbo, not content with manufacturing imitation canals, that began and ended in a wall, they dug great artificial lakes to recall their well-loved Hague.

The same evening, I set off by the new railway for Kandy and Nuwara Ellia (pronounced Nooralia) in the hills. Having no experience of the climate of mountain regions in the tropics, I expected a merely pleasant change, and left Columbo wearing my white kit, which served me well enough as far as Ambe Pusse-the railway terminus, which we reached at ten o'clock at night. We started at once by coach, and had not driven far up the hills in the still moonlight before the cold became extreme, and I was saved from a severe chill only by the kindness of the coffee-planter who shared the back seat with me, and who, being well clad in woollen, lent me his great-coat. After this incident, we chatted pleasantly without fear of interruption from our sole companion-a native girl, who sat silently chewing betel all the way-and reached Kandy before dawn. Telling the hotel servants to wake me in an hour, I wrapped myself in a blanket-the first I had seen since I left Australia -and enjoyed a refreshing sleep

CHAPTER II.

KANDY.

THE early morning was foggy and cold as an October dawn in an English forest; but before I had been long in the gardens of the Government House, the sun rose, and the heat returned once more. After wandering among the petunias and fanpalms of the gardens, I passed on into the city, the former capital of the Kandian or highland kingdom, and one of the holiest of Buddhist towns. The kingdom was never conquered by the Portuguese or Dutch while they held the coasts, and was not overrun by us till 1815, while it has several times been in rebellion since that date. The people still retain their native customs in a high degree: for instance, the Kandian husband does not take his wife's inheritance unless he lives with her on her father's land: if she lives with him, she forfeits her inheritance. Kandian law, indeed, is expressly maintained by us except in the matters of polygamy and polyandry, although the maritime Cinghalese are governed, as are the English in Ceylon and at the Cape, by the civil code of Holland.

The difference between the Kandian and coast Cinghalese is very great. At Kandy, I found the men wearing flowing crimson robes and flat-topped caps, while their faces were lighter in colour than those of the coast people, and many of them had beards. The women also wore the nose-ring in a different way, and were clothed above as well as below the waist. It is possible that some day we may unfortunately hear more of this energetic and warlike people.

The city is one that dwells long in the mind. The Upper Town is one great garden, so numerous are the sacred groves,

vocal with the song of the Eastern orioles, but here and there are dotted about pagoda-shaped temples, identical in form with those of Tartary two thousand miles away, and from these there proceeds a roar of tom-toms that almost drowns the song. One of these temples contains the holiest of Buddhist relics, the tooth of Buddha, which is yearly carried in a grand procession. When we first annexed the Kandian kingdom, we established the Buddhist Church, made our officers take part in the procession of the Sacred Tooth, and sent a State offering to the shrine. Times are changed since then, but the Buddhist priests are still exempt from certain taxes. All round the sacred enclosures are ornamented walls, with holy sculptured figures; and in the Lower Town are fresh-water lakes and tanks, formed by damming the Mavaliganga River, and, also, in some measure, holy. An atmosphere of Buddhism pervades all Kandy.

From Kandy, I visited the coffee-district of which it is the capital and centre, but was much disappointed with regard to the amount of land that is still open to coffee cultivation. At the Government Botanic Garden at Peredenia (where the jalap plant, the castor-oil plant, and the ipecacuanha were growing side by side), I was told that the shrub does not flourish under 1500, nor over 3000 or 4000 feet above sea-level, and that all the best coffee-land is already planted. Coffee-growing has done so much for Ceylon that it is to be hoped it has not reached its limit: in thirty-three years, it has doubled her trade ten times, and to England alone she now sends two millions worth of coffee every year. The central district of the island, in which lie the hills and coffee-country, is, with the exception of the towns, politically not a portion of Ceylon: there are English capital, English management, and Indian labour, and the cocoa-palm is unknown; Tamil labourers are exclusively employed upon the plantations, although the carrying trade, involving but little labour, is in the hands of the Cinghalese. No such official discouragement is shown to the European planters in Ceylon as that which they experience in India ; and were there but more good coffee-lands and more capital, all would be well. The planters say that, after two years' heavy expenditure and dead loss, 20 per cent. can be made by men

who take in sufficient capital, but that no one ever does take capital enough for the land he buys, and that they all have to borrow from one of the Columbo companies at 12 per cent., and are then bound to ship their coffee through that company alone. It is regarded as an open question by many disinterested friends of Ceylon whether it might not be wise for the local Government to advance money to the planters: but Desides the fear of jobbery, there is the objection to this course, that the Government, becoming interested in the success of coffee-planting, might also come to connive at the oppression of the native labourers. This oppression of the people lies at the bottom of that Dutch system which is often held up for our imitation in Ceylon.

Those who narrate to us the effects of the Java system forget that it is not denied that in the tropical islands, with an idle population and a rich soil, compulsory labour may be the only way of developing the resources of the countries, but they fail to show the justification for our developing the resources of the country by such means. The Dutch culture-system puts a planter down upon the crown lands, and, having made advances to him, leaves it to him to find out how he shall repay the Government. Forced labour-under whatever name is the

natural result.

*

The Dutch, moreover, bribe the great native chiefs by princely salaries and vast percentage upon the crops their people raise, and force the native agriculturists to grow spices for the Royal Market of Amsterdam. Of the purchase of these spices the Government has a monopoly: it buys them at what price it will, and selling again in Europe to the world, clears annually some £4,000,000 sterling by the job. That plunder, slavery, and famine often follow the extension of their system is nothing to the Dutch. Strict press laws prevent the Dutch at home from hearing anything of the discontent in Java, except when famine or insurrection call attention to the isle ; and £4,000,000 a year profit, and half the expenses of their navy paid for them by one island in the Eastern seas, make up for many deaths of brown-faced people by starvation.

* Since this was written there has been an outcry in Holland, followed. by an improvement in the Government of Java.

The Dutch often deny that the Government retains the monopoly of export; but the fact of the matter is that the Dutch Trading Company, who have the monopoly of the exports of the produce of Crown lands-which amount to twothirds of the total exports of the isle-are mere agents of the Government.*

It is hard to say that apart from the nature of the culturesystem, the Dutch principle of making a profit out of the countries which they rule is inconsistent with the position of a Christian nation. It is the ancient system of countries having possessions in the East, and upon our side we are not able to show any definite reasons in favour of our course of scrupulously keeping separate the Indian revenue, and spending Indian profits upon India and Cinghalese in Ceylon, except such reasons as would logically lead to our quitting India altogether. That the Dutch should make a profit out of Java is perhaps not more immoral than that they should be there. At the same time, the character of the Dutch system lowers the tone of the whole Dutch nation, and especially of those who have any connexion with the Indies, and effectually prevents future amendment. With our system, there is some chance of right being done, so small is our self-interest in the wrong. From the fact that no surplus is sent home from Ceylon, she is at least free from that bane of Java,-the desire of the local authorities to increase as much as possible the valuable productions of their districts, even at the risk of famine, provided only that they may hope to put off the famine until after their time.

Not to be carried away by the material success of the Dutch system, it is as well to bear in mind its secret history. A private company-the Dutch Trading Society-was founded at Amsterdam in 1824, the then King being the largest shareholder. The company was in difficulties in 1830, when the King, finding he was losing money fast, sent out as GovernorGeneral of the Dutch East Indies his personal friend Van den Bosch. The next year, the culture-system, with all its attendant horrors, was introduced into Java by Van den Bosch, the Dutch

The Dutch Liberals have since their accession to power made many changes in Java, but the old "culture system with forced labour still applies to sagu and coffee, and the taxes are still farmed.