160 
The Dutch of Ceylon, 
This mode of iiviiio- cannot fail to make them lazy and iii» 
dolent, which indeed they generally are to a proverb. As they 
make no effort to encrease their knowledge, and even appear 
to have no curiosity, nor enjoyment in any thing, beyond the 
common insipid routine I have described, they are of course 
ignorant and stupid, wdthout capacity, and without desire of ex- 
celling by exertion. Their children are treated with the same 
neglect as other objects, and are usually committed to the care 
of the slaves. Their selfish and contracted minds become 
equally callous to the feelings of humanity, and their poor 
slaves are treated with cruelty upon the slightest provocatioii, 
and often from mere caprice : this treatment, tliey alledge, is 
highly necessary to keep them in proper subjection; an argu- 
ment employed by those only who feel that they deserve to 
have their injustice retaliated upon themselves, and who liope 
to escape punishment by stifling the feelings of immanity. 
The conversation of women, which has tended so much to 
humanize the world, forms very little of a Ceylonese Dutch- 
man’s entertainment. Although the ladies make part of the 
company, yet they experience none of that attention and po- 
liteness to which the fair sex are accustomed in Europe. After 
the first salutations are over, the men seem to forget that the 
ladies aie at all present; and will sit a whole evening talking 
politics over their pipes, without once addressing the women or 
taking the least notice of them. Indeed they avoid as much 
as possible this dead weight on their social enjoyments, and 
therefore usually get into another room by themselves; or if 
they have not an opportunity to do so, they club together at 
one end of the room, and leave the other to the ladies. 
When such is the treatment which they experience from the 
