18 "THE SPORTS AND GAMES OF THE SINGHALESE. 



that the Singhalese should in spite of an enervating 

 climate, still count among their field games at least, one 

 demanding nearly as much violent exercise as Cricket, is 

 sufficient proof that when the inducement is present, the 

 Singhalese youth is as capable of exertion and endurance 

 as his more favored brother of a colder climate. While, 

 however, the climate may be considered the principal 

 cause which tends to make the Singhalese an ease-loving 

 - people, it must not be forgotten that there are others 

 which conduce to the same end, Among these latter may 

 be mentioned the entire absence* till very lately, of any 

 thing like a spirit of emulation, in consequence of the 

 equally entire absence of a system of school organization, 

 that recognized the importance of the play ground. They 

 have no public schools, colleges, or universities, the 

 youth of one institution competing among themselves or 

 with those of another, for the laurel crown or palm of 

 victory. Under their own Native Sovereigns, and cen- 

 turies before the Portuguese secured their first foot-hold on 

 the shores of Lanka, every district and every province had 

 its public school aad its college, but these institutions 

 were, as a rule, under the supervision and control of 

 the priesthood — staid sober old dons who would have as 

 much tolerated any manifestations of spirit, pluck, or mis- 

 chief, as the violation of any of the " five precepts." It 

 necessarily followed that under such a system of scholas- 

 tic discipline, the alumni of these colleges could indulge 

 in no kind of exercise more violent than the composition 

 of learned essays on the recondite subject of the Buddhist 

 metempsychosis, or the less elevating if more tiresome 

 task of manufacturing diagram poetry. The later Kings, 



