* INTRODUCTION. XXV 



to British enterprise in 1815. The lofty region, from 

 be],^ind whose barrier of hills the kings of Kandy 

 had looked down and defied the arms of three suc- 

 cessive European nations, was at last rendered ac- 

 cessible by the grandest mountain road in India ; 

 and in the north of the island, the ruins of ancient 

 cities, and the stupendous monuments of an early civi- 

 lisation, were discovered in the solitudes of the great 

 central forests. English merchants embarked in the re- 

 nowned trade in cinnamon, which we had wrested from 

 the Dutch ; and British capitalists introduced the cultiva- 

 tion of coffee into the previously inaccessible highlands. 

 Changes of equal magnitude contributed to alter the 

 social position of the natives; domestic slavery was 

 extinguished; compulsory labour, previously exacted 

 from the free races, was abolished ; and new laws under 

 a charter of justice superseded the arbitrary rule of the 

 native chiefs. In the course of less than half a century, 

 the aspect of the country became changed, the condition 

 of the people was submitted to new influences ; and the 

 time arrived to note the effects of this civil revolution. 

 But on searching for books such as I expected to 

 find, recording the phenomena consequent on these do- 

 mestic and political events, I was disappointed to discover 

 that they were few in number and generally meagre 

 in information. Major Forbes, who in 1826 and for 

 some years afterwards held a civil appointment in the 

 Kandyan country, published an interesting account of his 

 observations ^ ; and his work derives value from the atten- 



en Nieuiv Oost-Indien, alludes more ; lives and spies. (Vol. v. cli. ii. p. 35; 



than once with regret to the igno- | ch. xv. [>. 205.) 



jance in which his countrymen were | ^ Eleven Years in Cei/lon, ^t., by 



kept as to the interior of Ceylon, 

 concerning which their only infor- 

 mation was obtained through i'ugi- 



IMajor Forces. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 

 1840. 



