I 
194 Manners and Customs of the Ceylonese. 
palms of the hands to the forehead, and then making a salem^ 
or low bow. It is here that the distinctions of rank are pecu- 
liarly observable: a person of a lower class, on meeting his supe- 
rior, almost throws himself prostrate before him, and repeats 
his name and quality fifty different ways; while the superior, 
stalking past with the most unbending gravity of features, 
scarcely deigns the slightest nod in return. 
The natives of Ceylon are more continent with respect to 
women, than the other Asiatic nations; and their women are 
treated with much more attention. A Ceylonese woman scarce- 
ly ever experiences the treatment of a slave, but is looked 
upon by her husband, more after the European manner, as a 
wife and a companion. These traits may seem very inconsist- 
ent with that licentious commerce among the sexes which is 
so contrary to Asiatic customs and ideas, and which has pre- 
vailed from time immemorial in this island. Mr. Knox has 
drawn a picture of their total disregard to chastity, or any 
bounds to sexual intercourse, which is extremely abhorrent 
to the ideas not only of an Asiatic, but even to the inha- 
bitants of the most dissolute metropolis in Europe: and from 
my own observations among the Cingiese, and all the ac- 
counts which I could obtain of the Candians, I am con- 
vinced that he has in very few instances exaggerated their 
licentiousness. 
A Cingiese husband is not in the smallest degree jealous of 
his wife, and is rather ambitious to display her to the public 
eye. Nor is he particularly offended at her infidelity to him, 
unless she be caught in the fact; in which case he thinks him- 
self entitled to exercise the rights of an Asiatic husband. The 
infringement of chastity scarcely subjects a woman either mar- 
