NO. 42. — 1891.] ANCIENT INDUSTRIES. 5 



"but as Tennent has pronounced positively against that 

 theory, it seems necessary to try other possibilities, and to 

 consider whether, for example, the gems, pearls, and mineral 

 resources of the Island would suffice to account for the state of 

 the country and the conditions that have been proved to 

 ■exist. 



Referring to all that is known of tribes of people now 

 living, without agriculture, on fruits, honey, and the products 

 of the chase in Australia, California, Nevada, and the Cape, 

 where mineral wealth once abounded and might have been 

 collected on or near the surface, they all —Red Indians, Bush- 

 men, and Hottentots alike — neglected the precious minerals 

 and wandered in a perpetual state of warfare and intertribal 

 strife for the possession of the hunting grounds that supplied 

 the necessaries of life. The treasures they value are scalps 

 and skulls, their dress skins, feathers, and war paint, and 

 their dwellings are caves and wigwams bearing no resem- 

 blance to anything recorded of the people of Ceylon or 

 their mode of life. In vain do we search for a parallel, or 

 even for any approach, on the part of nomadic tribes who 

 eschew agriculture to any such conditions as those postulated 

 of the Yakkhos at the time when Wijayo, enamoured of the 

 Yakkhini princess Kuveni, made her his wife, listened to 

 her treacherous counsel, and established his rule on the ruin 

 of that of two sovereigns who had assembled their courtiers 

 for the friendly purpose of celebrating a wedding festival in 

 honour of the respective scions of their houses. 



According to the principles specified in the first of these 

 Papers, wealth can only be acquired by means of labour, for 

 even the countries most richly endowed by nature yield up 

 their stores of natural wealth only in response to toil. The 

 .gold fever in Australia has already been cited to show that 

 gold, even when collected on or near the surface of the 

 ground, gave but a moderate return, on an average, to those 

 who crowded to the diggings. If, therefore, it were assumed 

 that gems and precious metals had been as plentiful and as 

 accessible in Ceylon as was gold in Australia, it could not have 



