158 COLOMBO. [Part VII. 



dings, or tlie solemnities that do honour to the dead. 

 The social segregation is carried to such an extreme, 

 that members of the several classes into wliich each 

 caste is subdivided, ^vith a distinctive rank for each, 

 refuse to associate together ; and a Yellale of the first 

 class would shrink from the communication with a Vellale 

 of a lower order, with as much sensitiveness as he would 

 avoid contact Avith a washer or a Clialia. 



Doubtless in time education and civihsation will 

 manifest then' power ; but in opposition to their pro- 

 gress no obstacle has yet been interposed so powerful 

 as caste. It interferes with the disciphne of schools, it 

 mars the harmonising efforts of Christianity, it dis- 

 countenances social improvement, and deprives the 

 civil authority of its most efficient agents, who, how- 

 ever endowed with the essentials of useftihiess, would 

 be paralysed in their functions by the disqualification 

 of conventional rank. The only great measure Hkely to 

 be productive of effect in equahsing the pretensions of 

 caste is the estabhshment of trial by jury, on which all 

 are entitled to serve on a footing of perfect equahty. 

 But the inference from past experiments of the govern- 

 ment, suggests the propriety of abstaining from direct 

 interference, and leaving the abatement of the evil to the 

 operation of time and the gTadual growth of intelh- 

 gence. 



Of a thing so fluctuating as Em*opean society in 

 a colony, it almost partakes of injustice to place on re- 

 cord any expression of opinion, the result of hmited 

 experience. It is unhappily the tendency of smaU 

 sections of society to decompose, when separated from 

 the great vital mass, as pools stagnate and putrify when 

 cut off from the in\dgorating flow of the sea. But the 

 process is variable, both in its agents and its manifesta- 

 tions. What seems repulsive in colonial society to-day, 

 may become attractive to-morrow, by a few timely depar- 

 tures ; and on the other hand, experience has mihappily 

 demonstrated that one ungenial arrival may be sufficient 



