Introduction. 
S 
j 
With these objects in view I continued my inquiries ; and was 
fortunate enough to have every opportunity in the prosecution of 
them which the present situation of the island affords. During 
u residence of upwards of three years I visited almost every part 
of the sea-coast ; and before I left the island, I was become quite 
familiar with its general appearance, its natural productions, the 
present state of its cultivation, and the manners and dispositions 
of its inhabitants. On an embassy being sent to the native 
King of the island, I was also among those officers who were 
appointed to accompany it ; and by this means had an oppor- 
tunity of observing the interior of the country, into which the 
jealousy of the natives has seldom permitted any European to 
penetrate. 
The advantages which I derived from personally visiting the 
greater part of the island, were very much improved by the 
assistance of Mr. Dormieux, a Dutch gentleman, in the English 
service, who had resided upwards of twenty years in Ceylon, 
and had during that period acquired a complete knowledge both 
of the manners and language of its several inhabitants. , By his 
means, therefore, I was enabled to get over many obstacles which 
presented themselves to my researches ; and the valuable commu- 
nications of several friends have rendered me essential service in 
completing my accounts of Ceylon. Still, however, I have been 
careful not to advance any fact of which I was not either an eye- 
witness, or which was not derived from information that no one 
could hesitate to believe. The manners and customs of the inha- 
bitants I have endeavoured to describe in the manner they im- 
pressed my mind at the time I observed them. I liave followed 
the same plan in giving an account of the natural productions 
of the island ; and hence my observations may be thought more 
