1337.] 



or Pulney Mountains, 



28? 



to exert their ingenuity to do without things they want, but have few or 

 no opportunities of procuring even at a high price, will stimulate them 

 to exertion to procure the means of purchasing things daily before their 

 eyes, and of the uses and value of which they are by no means ignorant. 

 AVhen they know that a few measures of good clean wheat or barley 

 will purchase them a hatchet or a cloth, as certainly as so many heads 

 of garlic, they will soon see the advantage of bestowing equal care on 

 the culture of the one, as is now given to that of the other : and, when 

 the facilities for carrying their produce to market are increased by 

 means of improved roads, they will take care that the merchants, now 

 in the habit of trading on the hills and fixing their own prices, give 

 them proper value in exchange, as they can if refused take it them- 

 selves to the low country markets. It may, in the first instance, be ne- 

 cessary to give a premium for the establishment of shops, but this can- 

 not be long required. 



Should these suggestions be thought worthy of adoption, either 

 wholly or in part, it may be necessary, to ensure the careful ap« 

 propriation of the funds to proper objects, to order the collector 

 or his immediate subordinate to inspect the works in progress at least 

 twice a year, and to pay more transitory visits, at any time his other 

 duties may call him to the neighbourhood. And should they happily 

 prove useful in paving the way to future prosperity and increase of the 

 population, by giving a stimulus to exertion, it may, after the first 

 two or three years, be, proper to carry any excess of revenue that 

 results to th,e credit of the state : since these objects will be much 

 better accomplished by a slow, than speedy process, which will allow 

 time for the habits and dispositions of the people to undergo the 

 changes necessary to enable them to keep pace with the improvement 

 of their country. Another great improvement it appears to me would 

 be, as already hinted, the introduction among them of the coffee plant, 

 by which the present rank unwholesome and useless vegetation, with 

 which their villages are choaked, would be superseded, and a substitute 

 of great intrinsic value made to take its place. Such a proceeding was 

 adopted a few years ago in the Kandy country by Sir E. Barnes, and 

 has so completely succeeded, that already every cottage has its coffee 

 inclosure, and coffee shops have become common along all the princi- 

 pal roads, at which it is as much the custom of coolies carrying loads 

 to stop and drink coffee, when fatigued, as elsewhere it is their habit 

 to partake of the pernicious contents of the toddy shop. On the upper 

 region sugar could scarcely be expected to prove a lucrative crop, at 

 least for some years, but it appears to me it might be tried with every 

 hope of success on the lower valleys, and, should it succeed, would prove 

 an article of great value. 



