TIIE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
137 
appeared exceedingly palatable to an Englishman. After din- 
ner they resume their favourite regale of smoking in an 
undress, and then go to sleep for an hour. As soon as they 
are again dressed, they either go abroad to pay visits, or 
receive company at home; and this with another pipe fills 
up the interval till supper is announced at nine, when the 
same heavy sort of food is again served up. 
This mode of living cannot fail to make them lazy and 
indolent, 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, without capacity and with- 
out desire of excelling by exertion. Their children are treated 
with the same neglect as other objects, and are usually com- 
mitted to the care of the slaves. Their selfish and contracted 
minds become equally callous to the feelings of humanity, 
and their poor slaves arc treated with cruelty upon the 
slightest provocation, and often from mere caprice : this treat- 
ment they alledge is highly necessary to keep them in proper 
subjection ; an argument employed only by those who feel 
that they deserve to have their injustice retaliated upon 
themselves, and who hope to escape punishment by stiffiing 
the feelings of humanity. 
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 
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