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CEYLONESE. 
wonderfiil, as it is more remote from any thing with which experience 
or testimony has hitherto acquainted us ; and if it passes farther, 
beyond the notions that we have been accustomed to form, it becomes 
at last incredible. We seldom consider, that human knowledge is 
very narrow — that national manners are formed by chance — -that 
uncommon conjunctures of causes produce rare effects — or that 
what is impossible at one time or place, may yet happen in another. 
It is always easier to deny than to inquire. To refuse credit, con- 
fers for a moment, an appearance of superiority, which every little 
mind is tempted to assume, when it may be gained so cheaply as by 
withdrawing attention from evidence, and declined the fatigue of 
comparing probabilities. Many relations of travellers have been 
slighted as fabulous, till more frequent voyages have confirmed their 
veracity ; and it may reasonably be imagined, that many ancient 
historians are unjustly suspected of falsehood, because our own times 
afford nothing that resembles what they tell. Few narratives will, 
either to men or women, appear more incredible, than the histories 
of the Amazons ; of female nations, of whose constitution it was the 
essential and fundamental law, to exclude men from all participation 
either of public or domestic business ; where female armies marched 
under female captains ; female farmers gathered the harvests ; female 
partners danced together, and female wits diverted one another. 
Yet several ages of antiquity have transmitted accounts of the Ama- 
zons of Caucasus, and of the Amazons of America, who had given 
their name to the greatest river of the world. Condamine lately 
found such memorials, as can be expected among erratic and unlet- 
tered nations, where events are recorded only by tradition, and new 
swarms, settling in the country from time to time, confuse and efface 
all traces of former times. 
Rousseau says, “ The empire of woman is an empire of softness, 
of address, of complacency. Her commands are caresses, her menaces 
are tears. But the empire of the Amazons was certainly an em- 
pire of a very different kind. Upon the whole, we may conclude with 
Dr. Johnson, “The character of the ancient Amazons was rather 
terrible than lovely. The hand could not be very delicate that was 
only employed in drawing the bow and brandishing the battle-axe. 
Their power was maintained by cruelty, their courage was deformed 
by ferocity ; and their examples only shews, that men and women 
live best together.’' 
Ceylonese. 
The inhabitants of the island of Ceylon in the East Indjes. The 
aborigines of Ceylon consist of Iw'o classes of people, the Cingalese 
and the Vaddhs. The latter are still in the rudest stage of social life, 
they live embosomed in the woods, or in the hollow's of the mountains. 
Hunting is their sole employment, and providing for the day their 
only care. Some of them acknowledge the authority of the king of 
Candy, and exchange with the Cingalese elephants’ teeth, and deer’s 
flesh, for arrows, cloths, &q. ; but this traffic is not general, for two- 
