THE SPORTS AND GAMES OF THE SINGHALESE. 



whatever may have been the extent of their acquirements 

 in the arts and sciences, set but little store on the physi- 

 cal development of muscle an 1 sinew, and though they 

 may occasionally condescend to go out a hawking, or to 

 treat themselves and their Court to the spectacle of a 

 cock-pit y or a bull, or rather buffaloe fight, the gymnasium 

 was an institution as utterly unknown to their Majesties 

 of Kandy as it was to their predecessors of Auurajepoora- 

 and Polannaru »-e-. After the sceptre of Lanka had de- 

 parted from the Royal line who had wielded it for more 

 than twenty-two centuries* and the Malabar dynasty suc- 

 ceeded to the throne of Kandy, whatever of spirit the nation 

 had possessed was utterly crushed out, while the maritime 

 provinces which had passed under the iron rule of the 

 Portuguese and the Dutch, were so completely denational- 

 ized, that it is only within the last quarter of a century 

 that the natives of this island have begun to rea under 

 the benignant sway of Britain, the high privileges of 

 British subjects. Enjoying as they now do, the blessings of 

 civil and religious liberty in a degree to which many of 

 the oldest States of civilized Europe have hardly attained, 

 the national character of the Singhalese is being silently but 

 surely moulded into habits of independence and self reliance; 

 while every step made in advance, draws closer those tus 

 of loyalty to the British throne, for which they are so emi- 

 nently distinguished. The impulse given towards pro- 

 gress, moralj social, and material, by the example of the 

 ruling race, may take mihy years ro ! fructify, and though 

 even some of the vices of European civilization may 



* Sovereigns of the " Great Dynasty" reigned from B. C. 543 to 

 A, D. 302 ; those of the Lower Dynasty" from A. D, 802 to 1;06, 



