THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
J83 
which they imbibe from their infancy, and which continue 
to embitter their existence ever after. Sports and diversions 
are almost entirely unknown among them. None of them 
attempt those tricks and feats of activity for which the 
natives of Hindustan are so famous ; for all the jugglers, 
dancers, and conjurors, who are at any time found in Cey- 
lon, are universally from the continent. The dispirited and 
oppressed state under which the Cinglese have so long 
groaned, may indeed be supposed to have among them ex- 
tinguished the practice of their original amusements; but 
during the whole time of my stay on the island, and after 
the minutest enquiries, I never could learn of any diversions 
in use among the Candians. It is indeed to be supposed 
that in their more flourishing state, they had like other 
nations, some recreations for their leisure hours; and Mr. 
Knox records one or two which in his time still continued in 
use at new-years and particular festivals : but their perpetual, 
contests with the Portuguese and Dutch, joined to the tyranny 
of their own internal government, have probably succeeded, 
along with the gloom of their superstition, in destroying 
those glimmerings of humane and social enjoyment, which 
were just beginning to break through the dark ferocity of 
barbarism. 
During the wet season, the Ceylonese are subject to a va- 
riety of diseases. Every man is here his own physician, and 
the mode of cure practised is of course very simple. A 
plaister of herbs or of cow dung is universally applied to the 
