172 EVERYDAY LIFE ON A 



even more valuable than they are in Europe ; 

 here, where one has so little human society, 

 one makes friends of the heroes and heroines of 

 romance, their joys and their griefs help to pass 

 many an hour of heat and discomfort, which 

 would otherwise be wearisome in the extreme ; 

 while as for solid books, one has leisure and 

 freedom from distraction enough to read and 

 thoroughly digest works which one could only 

 skim through in a busy life passed amongst 

 crowds. I find the Kandy Town Library 

 which contains nearly a thousand volumes of 

 well chosen books, a great resource. The sub- 

 scription is so moderate that anyone could afford 

 to join, and the committee are most liberal in 

 the number of books (six sets at a time) that 

 they allow country members. The Library 

 contains an excellent supply of travels, bio- 

 graphies and books relative to Ceylon, and a 

 great number of novels. The so called new 

 books are perhaps the least interesting to me, 

 because they are just what everyone has been 

 reading during the last five years in England, 

 and one hasn't yet had time to forget them. I 

 should say that a taste for reading was a most 

 useful one for anyone coming out here, adding 

 considerably to their happiness. 



In the course of my attempts to learn Tamil, 

 I lately found in " Inge va," the popular phrase 

 book, a most interesting selection from 



