182 
THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
other sex, for they are in general even regularly married at 
twelve, they soon lose the appearance of youth, and get old 
and haggart in their looks immediately after they pass 
twenty. The climate indeed conduces much to this early 
decay; and they expose themselves so much to the sun, that 
were it not for the quantities of cocoa-nut oil with which 
they anoint themselves profusely, their skins would soon crack 
and break out in blotches. 
The Cinglese women are much more pleasant in their man- 
ners, and I may add, more elegant in their persons than 
those of the other Indian nations. Their extreme cleanliness 
is a trait which renders them particularly agreeable to an 
Englishman, although he finds it something difficult to recon- 
cile himself to the strong exhalations of the cocoa-nut oil. 
The Ceylonese, like other inhabitants of warm climates, 
are particularly fond of bathing, and often plunge into the 
water several times a day. In this gratification, however, 
they are often interrupted by alligators of whom they enter- 
tain the greatest terror ; and are obliged to have recourse to 
precautions against this dreadful enemy, by inclosing with a 
strong paling a little spot on the side of a pond or river, 
sufficiently large to allow them room to wash and refresh 
themselves. 
Gravity, that constant characteristic of the savage state, 
still continues among the Ceylonese in a much greater degree 
than might be expected from their stage of civilization. 
This is probably owing to the gloomy superstitious fears 
