INTRODUCTION. XXV 



behind 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 acces- 

 sible by the construction of 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 civilisation, were discovered and explored in the 

 solitudes of the great central forests. English mer- 

 chants embarked in the renowned trade in cinnamon, 

 which we had wrested from the Dutch ; and British 

 capitalists introduced the cultivation of coffee into the 

 previously inaccessible highlands. Changes of equal 

 magnitude contributed to alter the social position of 

 the natives ; domestic slavery was extinguished ; com- 

 pulsory 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 superseded the arbitrary rule of the native chiefs.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 changes, I was disappointed to dis- 

 cover 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 l ; and his work derives value from the 



en Nieuw Oost-Lidien, alludes more 

 than once with regret to the igno- 

 rance in which his countrymen were 

 kept as to the interior of Ceylon, 



tives and spies. (Vol. v. ch. ii. p. 35 ; 

 ch. xv. p. 205.) 



1 Eleven Years in Ceylon, 8fc., by 



concerning which their only infor- I 1840. 

 ination was obtained through fugi- 



Major FOBBES. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 



