208 Learning and Arts of the Ceylonese. 
and both the seed time and harvest become in this manner the 
seasons of general industry and good fellowship. Each person 
of the society affords provisions to the whole during the time 
they are cultivating his fields. The women are not employed 
in either of these laborious operations ; their business is to 
gather the corn after the reapers, and assist in saving it. 
Oxen are employed both in ploughing and in treading out 
the corn. This method of separating the rice from the straw 
is in reality much more expeditious than our method of thresh- 
ing out corn; and as it is also attended with much less labour, 
a consideration always of the highest importance to a Cey- 
lonese, it is probable that the practice will be continued. For 
unhusking their rice, the mode they employ is to beat it in a 
mortar, or more frequently on a hard floor; or if the rice be 
of a brittle sort, and likely to break in pieces, they boil it 
previous to beating it out. Water is the only manure which 
they think requisite. 
It is evident from this sketch of their agriculture, that the 
lands of Ceylon do not produce a crop at all equal to what, 
by proper cultivation, they might be made to bear. The in- 
troduction of a more improved method would, in all probabi- 
lity, soon render the island capable not only of supporting its 
present inhabitants, but also of affording resources sufficient for 
a much encreased population. 
The extreme indolence into which the Ceylonese are at pre- 
sent sunk, makes them employ every expedient to escape labour, 
and the small quantity of food, which is necessary for the 
support of their existence, enables them throughout the greater 
part of the year literally to live without doing any thing. 
Small as is the labour required for the cultivation of their rice’ 
