Constitution of the Kandyan Kingdom. 235 
of the enquiry and the number of the chiefs who were judges were in 
general securities against a palpable injustice, though fees were sometimes 
presented to the chiefs of principal weight in that court, and sometimes 
probably influenced its decisions, especially when its assessors were few. 
3d. When trifling cases are heard and settled by the village court, in 
which the principal inhabitants of the village in fact constituted a jury. 
4th. When litigations arose amongst the most indigent part of the com- 
munity, who having nothing to allure the avarice of their judge, will usually 
obtain justice from a single chief, though it be more difficult to obtain a 
hearing ; and there have been some few Kandyan chiefs reputed no less for 
their ability in the investigation of suits than their integrity in the decision 
of them. 
Lastly, the abuses abovementioned are much more frequent in the 
desavonies which are distant from the capital than in the districts sur- 
rounding it, because the inhabitants of the latter are more immediately 
under the royal eye and superintendence, as from being constantly called 
to Kandy, on public services, and at public festivals, they had frequent 
communication and acquaintance with the principal chiefs and with 
each other, and hence acquired a knowledge of their established customs 
and a sense of injuries. They had more frequent and ready opportunities 
of laying their grievances before the King or the Adikars, or some other 
than their own chief; and the chiefs themselves were more fearful of 
doing injustice, either by partial judgment, or by severe punishment, or by 
exorbitant and unusual fines. 
But it will be observed, upon a review of the whole system, that there ex- 
isted under the Kandyan government scarcely any other safeguards against 
a corrupt administration of justice than were to be found in the personal 
integrity of the chiefs, who had every temptation to prevent it. 
Institutions and Customs. 
The Kandyans have no written laws, and no record whatsoever of judicial 
proceedings was preserved in civil or criminal cases. 
In cases of land only written decrees called sitéa ; and if decided by oaths 
the two dewe sitlas were delivered to the party to whom the land was ad- 
judged, and continued as title deeds in his family. 
There was therefore nothing to restrain the arbitrary will of the King, 
and nothing to guide the opinions of the sovereign judge and the chiefs but 
