CuAP. III.] THE ENGLISH POLICY. 95 



ment, and succeeded in carrying a military road, iinsur- a.d. 

 passed in excellence, into the heart of the Kandyan coun- l^^^- 

 try, reaching an altitude of more than six thousand feet 

 above the sea. Eocks were pierced, precipices scarped, 

 and torrents bridged, to effect the passage ; and the 

 Kandyans, when the task was accomplished, recalled 

 the warning of ancient prophecy, and felt that now the 

 conquest of their country was complete.^ 



When the English landed in Ceylon in 1796, there 

 was not in the whole island a single practicable road, 

 and troops, on their toilsome marches between the 

 fortresses on the coast, dragged their cannon through 

 deep sands along the shore.^ Before Sir Edward 

 Barnes resigned his government, every town of import- 

 ance was approached by a carriage road ; and the long 

 desired highway from sea to sea, to connect Colombo 

 and Trincomalie, was commenced. Civil organisation 

 has since been matm^ed with equal success, domestic 

 slavery has been abohshed, rehgious disquahfications 

 removed, compulsory labour abandoned, a charter of 

 justice promulgated, a legislative council estabhshed, 

 trading monopolies extinguished, commerce encouraged 

 in its utmost freedom, and the mountain forests felled 

 to make way for plantations of coffee, whose exuberant 

 produce is already more than sufficient for the consump- 

 tion of the British empii'c. 



By the Singhalese of the maritime pro\dnces, long a.d. 

 familiar with the energy and enterprise of Europeans, 1^^^- 

 these results are regarded with satisfaction. But the 

 Kandyans, brought into more recent contact with civi- 

 hsation, look on with uneasy surprise at the effect it is 

 producing. The silence of their mountain solitudes 

 has been broken by the din of industry, and the seclu- 

 sion of their villages invaded by bands of hired 

 labourers from the IncUan coast. Their ancient habits 

 have been interrupted and their prejudices startled ; 



^ See tlie description of this road I " Cohdinee, ch. i. p. 15. 

 and its passes^ Vol, II. Pt. vn. ch. iv. | 



