1 76 
THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
rently enjoying it as much as an Englishman would a bottle 
of old port. 
In their salutations they are particularly punctilious : the 
form which they use is that common to all Indians, of 
bringing the palms of the hands to the forehead, and then 
making a salam , or low bow. It is here that the distinctions 
of rank are peculiarly observable : a person of a lower class 
on meeting his superior, almost throws himself prostrate be- 
fore him, and repeats his name and quality fifty different 
ways ; while the superior, stalking past with the most un- 
bending 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 
almost never experiences the treatment of a slave, but is 
looked upon by her husband, more after the European man- 
ner, as a wife and a companion. These traits may seem 
very inconsistent with that licentious commerce among the 
sexes, which is so contrary to Asiatic customs and ideas, 
and which has prevailed from time immemorial in this 
island. Mr. Knox has drawn a picture of their total disre- 
gard to chastity, or any bounds to sexual intercourse, which 
is extremely abhorrent to the ideas not only of an Asiatic, 
but even to the inhabitants of the most dissolute Metropolis 
in Europe : and from my own observations among the Cin- 
