}Q2 
THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
this manner the seasons of general industry and good fellow- 
ship. Each person of the society affords provisions to the 
whole during the time they are cultivating his fields. The 
women are not employed in either of these laborious opera- 
tions; their business is to gather the corn after the reapers, 
and assist in saving it. 
Oxen arc employed both in ploughing and in treading out 
the corn. This method of separating the rice from the 
straw, is in reality much more expeditious than our method 
of threshing out corn; and as it is also attended with much 
le~s labour, a consideration always of the highest importance 
to a Ceylonese, it is probable that the practice will be con- 
tinued. For unhusking their rice, the mode they employ is 
to beat it in a mortar, or more frequently on a hard floor; 
or if the rice be of a brittle sort, and likely to break in 
pieces, they boil it previous to beating it out. Water is 
the only manure which they think requisite. 
It is evident from this sketch of their agriculture, that 
the lands of Ceylon do not produce a crop at all equal to 
what by proper cultivation they might be made to bear. 
The introduction of a more improved method would, in all 
probability, soon render the island capable not only of sup- 
porting its present inhabitants, but also of affording resources 
sufficient for a much encreased population. 
The extreme indolence into which the Ceylonese are at 
present sunk, makes them employ every expedient to escape 
labour, and the small quantity of food which is necessary 
