Chap. IL] RESTOEATIOX OF RUIXED TANKS. 435 



manual labour essential to realise again the ao-ricul- 

 tural felicity which prevailed under the Singhalese 

 dynasties. But the experiment is one worthy of the 

 beneficent rule of the British Crown, under whose 

 auspices the ancient organisation may be revived 

 amongst the native Singhalese. The project has been 

 broaclied of initiating the experiment by colonisation 

 from the coast of India, or by the introduction of 

 agriculturists from China ; but the suggestion is un- 

 congenial of attempting the revival of agriculture 

 through the instrumentality of Tamils, the very race 

 to whose mahgnant influence it owes its decay ; and any 

 project, to be satisfactory as well as successfid, should 

 contemplate the benefit of the natives, and not that of 

 strangers in Ceylon. 



The Singhalese within the last three hundred years 

 have seen three European nations in succession take pos- 

 session of their country and monopohse its productions 

 for the enrichment of foreigners. The Portuguese and 

 Dut'»h extorted its cinnamon and pearls, the British 

 have covered its mountains with plantations of coffee, 

 and its coasts with gardens of coco-nut palms ; but each 

 has failed in turn to inaugurate a pohcy that would 

 tend successfully to elevate native industry, or emanci- 

 pate the people themselves from their dependence upon 

 foreigners for food. Apathetic and impassive as they 

 are in other particulars, the people are keenly sen- 

 sitive to their wrongs in this respect. Tradition and 

 their historical annals have famiharised them A\dth the 

 names of those sovereigns whose reigns were signalised 

 by the promotion of the one paramount interest of 

 tlieir subjects, and whose memory is cherished Avith cor- 

 responding devotion. Even the rule of usurpers was 

 submitted to not merely with patience but with grati- 

 tude, where it was characterised by generosity in 

 the maintenance of the great works on which pro- 

 sperity was so largely dependent. In the gloom of its 

 dechne the native chronicles of the island do not fail to 



F F 2 



