156 



COLOMBO. 



[Part VII. 



reception rooms, which are kept darkened and mth 

 closed -windows till the arrival of the guests. 



Great pams have been taken ^vith the gardens of these 

 bungalows : the rarest and most beautiful flowering plants 

 of the island have been planted around them, along with 

 fruit trees of every variety ; and exotics from the Eastern 

 Archipelago, Austraha, and India have been introduced 

 in such numbers as to justify the exclamation of Prince 

 Soltykoff that Colombo was " un jardin botanique siu* mie 

 echelle gigantesque." ^ 



Of the various races which inhabit Colombo, the 

 bidk of the Singhalese are handicraftsmen^ and ser- 

 vants ; the Parsees are exclusively merchants ; the Moors 

 retail dealers ; the Malays soldiers and valets ; the Ta- 

 mils labourers and coohes ; and the Caffres excavators 

 and pioneers. The majority of the Portuguese de- 

 scendants consist of impoverished artisans and domes- 

 tics, and some few of them are successfully engaged in 

 trades and professions. But the Dutch Burghers, and 

 the offspring of the Enghsh by intermarriages with 

 the natives, form essentially the middle class in all the 

 towns in Ceylon. They have risen to eminence at the 

 Bar, and occupied the highest positions on the Bench. 

 They are largely engaged in mercantile pm^suits, and 

 as -writers and clerks they fill places of trust in every 

 administrative estabhshment fi^om the department of the 

 Colonial Secretary to the humblest pohce court. It is 

 not possible to speak too highly of the services of this 

 meritorious bodj^ of men, by whom the whole machinery 

 of government is put into action under the orders of the 

 civil officers. They may faufy be described in the lan- 



^ Prince Solttkoff, Voyage dims 

 rinde, p. 30. 



* It is a curious trait, not unfi-e- 

 quent amongst the Singhalese of a 

 rank above artisans, to encourage the 

 growth of a nail on one of their 

 fingers ; which denotes by its extra- 



ordinaiy length that the individual is 

 not addicted to labour. A similar 

 practice is observable amongst certain 

 classes in China and tlie Pliilippines. 

 In Borneo the nail selected is that of 

 the right thumb. 



