NO. 37. — 1888.] INDUSTRIES OP CEYLON. 



357 



by Veddas or bushmen scouring the Island for a miserable 

 subsistence of fruit, honey, and game. The picture such a 

 country would have presented may be imagined from the 

 isolated condition of the part of this Island now occupied by 

 the few remaining Veddas that survive, and better still from 

 what is known of the wilds of Australia, where aborigines 

 roam in search of a wretched and precarious subsistence. 

 Moreover, the troublesome character of such people, as near 

 neighbours, is abundantly proved by the terrible contests 

 civilisation has had to wage against savagery in America and 

 elsewhere, even in our own times. 



It is very probable that poetic licence has multiplied many 

 fold the number of the noble ladies who came from the 

 Pandyan court to settle in renowned Lanka, and may have 

 magnified the value of the gifts they brought ; but, unless the 

 story be altogether rejected, it establishes the fact that Ceylon 

 was already a settled and civilised country when Wijayo and 

 his party set foot in it. The substantial and well-attested 

 facts of the narrative indicate a state of things wide as the 

 poles from anything to be found amongst Red Indian or 

 Hottentot tribes. What nomade tribe of which anything is 

 known, ever, for example, collected gems, gold, or any other 

 treasure than scalps, skulls, and such like trophies of their 

 savage habits ? The gold of Australia and California, albeit 

 glittering here and there upon the surface of the ground, lay 

 neglected by the hunters, who wandered for ages about those 

 regions in quest of game. Such races do not fulfil, and pro- 

 bably do not know, the divine injunction to subdue the earth, 

 but prey upon its natural productions, like the beasts of the 

 field, urged by the same wants and appetites, and satisfying 

 them by similar means. 



The hypothesis established by the foregoing facts harmo- 

 nises the various circumstances of the narrative of Wijayo's 

 adventure and the subsequent history of his reign, and that 

 of the dynasty he founded ; on any other theory these present 

 insuperable inconsistencies and impossibilities, which would 

 vitiate the whole annals of that important era. Hence the 



