the District of Noowerakalawiya, 165 



which it works is probably thus. A man knows that he will 

 shortly have to pay to Government a couple of rupees; none 

 of his neighbours will pay him for anything in cash, he there- 

 fore finds it necessary to grow something which he may sell to 

 strangers, and he soon discovers that, ceteris paribus, the less 

 bulky these goods are the better, after providing for the daily 

 wants of himself and his family ; he will therefore clear a chena 

 and cultivate, say Sesame. The produce he then removes to 

 Trincomalee, and sells for cash. lie now finds that the sum he 

 has received is greater than the amount of tax which he must 

 pay, and in wandering through the bazaar his fancy is struck 

 by some gaudy handkerchief, some bright brass vessel, some 

 china, &c. ; he buys the article and returns home. .The sight 

 of these purchases gives pleasure to his household, and creates 

 in them new desires and new wants. To gratify and relieve 

 these, he will in the next season clear a still larger chena, and 

 so the process continues. The increasing influence of money 

 is strikingly apparent in the instance of headmen and people 

 of family, who now care much less than heretofore about keep- 

 ing up large bodies of dependents. In a paper on the statistics 

 of the Putlam District, which I had the honour to transmit 

 to the Society some years ago, I shewed that the fishers there 

 were most anxious that the now discontinued fish tax should 

 be renewed ; and on the whole I believe, that at present the 

 people ought to be comparatively heavily taxed, not indeed to 

 such an extent as to discourage them, but to such that they 

 may be incited to industry. 



The castes are the same as those in other Districts, with this 

 exception, that there is one here not general over the Island, 

 and which is superior to that which is elsewhere considered 

 the highest, I mean the Wanne caste, who call themselves Wan- 

 niwurroo, the latter being a mere honorific. These persons are 

 the descendants of certain Tamuls who came over from the 



