FllOM KANDY TO CALT011A. MS 
When the sun was high, we seldom saw an animal of any 
kind, except a few butterflies flickering in the air, and oc- 
casionally a crow-pheasant flitting from one bush to an- 
other. Few scenes give intense and permanently pleasing 
emotions, which are not more or less connected with the 
labours and comforts of man. While vegetable nature 
abounded with the most wanton luxuriance, there were' 
many parts of our journey v/here, except the insect tribe, 
animated being seemed to exist. 
When opportunities offered, we endeavoured to obtain 
some information regarding the moral habits of the people. 
The guide, who was caught in the jungle shortly after we 
left Welle Malloo, furnished us with a few facts regarding 
the exposure of female infants in his part of the country. 
The practice of several men (frequently brothers) cohabiting 
with one woman is very general in almost every part of the 
Kandyan provinces. As reasons for this species of copartner- 
ship, the poor assign want of means to support individually 
a woman ; while the wealthy say, that they adopt this mea- 
sure for the purpose of concentrating the property of 
several males among the children of one woman. No one 
of the males has a better right to the denomination of hus- 
band than another. In consequence of a difference of opi- 
nion, the partnership is occasionally dissolved; in which 
case, an appeal is sometimes made to the magistrate, to de- 
cide with whom the woman should domiciliate, as also re- 
garding the appropriation of the common offspring. 
Captain Ribeiiio, who spent eighteen years in the woods 
of Ceylon, gives a very particular account of the practice 
of polyandrism among the Kandyans. He says, " La pre- 
miere nuit des noces est pour le mari, la seconde pour le 
frere du mari, et s'il y a un troisieme ou un quatrieme 
frere, jusqu'au septieme, ils ont chacun leur nuit, mais s**]! 
y a plus de sept freres^ le septieme^ et ceux qui sent apres, 
