The Press.
London, England, 1854-12-16 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

The author might have used much stronger
language; for it really seems to be the object
of the books he quotes to bring religion into
contempt by familiar and profane treatment
of the most holy persons and things—or, worse
still. to make it the vehicle for inculcating the
grossest licentiousness. Striking examples
might be adduced, but we must not pollute
our columns with them.
In one book we have the Saviour repre-
sented as coming down from Heaven to
show to some woman the injuries he received
before his crucifixion :
I shed for you (said Het seventy-two thousand two
hundred tears, and the number of drops of my blood in the
Garden of Olives was ninety-seven thousand three hundred
and seven. I received on my body one thousand six
hundred and sixty-seven blows ; on my cheeks, one hundred
and ten ; on my neck, one hundred and seven ; on my hack,
three hundred and eighty.

And He continues to recapitulate the blows
on different parts of His person in the same
methodical though far from edifying way. In
other of these books, under pretence of giving
counsels against sin, the most abominable allu-
sions are made, and iniquities of which per-
haps nobody would have the idea are indi-
cated ; others contain soi-disant " pious" anec-
dotes which would merit a prosecution by
the Society for the Suppression of Vice, if
there were such a society in France. Others
give copies of letters represented to have been
written by God in Heaven ! In another we
have the history of how a certain Abbe Chanu
forced his way into Paradise in spite of St.
Peter, and how he duped, and ridiculed, and
wrangled with the saint.
When such is the style in which the most
holy subjects aro treated, we can hardly be
surprised at finding, in the next chapter, a
description of books in which counsels as to the
best way of seducing girls and married women
are gravely given, together with specimens of
letters to be written on the commencement
and rupture of immoral connections. How
the French police could have allowed such
books, which M. Nisard justly describes as
" infamous," to have been circulated for years
it is not easy to understand. The last chap-
ter of the book is happily of a very different
character : it treats of the old romances and
tales, all of which, in spite of their well-known
absurdities, are well worth perusal, and many
of which are new to Englishmen.
From this rapid sketch it will be perceived
that M. Nisard 's book fully merits the com-
mendation we have ventured to bestow upon
it. Blemishes it has, no doubt : the author,
for example, indulges in rather too much of
the Frenchman's proverbial fondness of put-
ting himself forward and talking of himself ;
he goes into too much development on some
subjects and not into enough on others ; he
makes a parade of scholarly reading in some
places, and in others, where it was equally
called for, displays none at all ; and, not
paving the fear of the elder Disraeli, Mr.
Douce, and other literary' antiquaries, before
his eyes, he claims for Irance the honour of
having originated the "Dance Macabre "—all
the singular engravings of which, by the way,
he admirably reproduces. We notice, too, that
he says nothing at all about the people's songs,
though France possesses as many as any
country, seine of them of great antiquity ;
neither has he meddled at all with proverbs,
though the French, like Sancho Pansa, have
always made a free use thereof, and must, one
would think, have printed collections of them.
But, in spite of blemishes and omissions, the
.book is one which the statesman and the
moralist will consult with interest, from which
the student can derive instruction, and by
which the reader for amusement will be
pleased; and, by preserving in a permanent
form specimens of a branch of literature which
is about to he transformed or swept away alto-
gether, it will, beyond doubt, be highly es-
teemed by posterity.

The Bungalow and the Tent ; or, a Visit to
Ceylon. By Edward Sullivan. London:
Bentley.
Ma. SUL:IVAN is a young traveller, and in this
light, sketchy volume has given us his first
impressions upon the men and manners of
Ceylon. It is smartly written, to use the term
in an American sense, and entertaining

SATURDAY,

throughout. En route to India, Mr. Sullivan
stopped at Ceylon for a few weeks, paid
flying visits to the principal towns, rode
through the country, hunted elephants, made
notes of all he saw and heard, and, after the
due period of gestation, produces, as he him-
self says, " this old picture in a new light."
To the archaeologist Ceylon would prove a
most interesting study. Favorably situated
at the western entrance of the Bay of Bengal,
and bounded upon its southern and eastern
shores by the Indian Ocean, Ceylon is, by
position alone, intended as an emporium for
the trade between India, Africa, and China,
and though now, comparatively speaking, a
country without commerce or population, it
was once a powerful State, engrossing a vast
eastern trade, and rapidly advancing in civili-
sation and wealth. However, with the causes
of its decay and ruin we have no present
concern.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century,
the country being torn with civil war, and in-
vaded at the same time from Malabar and
Arabia, the King purchased the assistance of
the Portuguese by the promise of an annual
tribute of cinnamon. His wary allies, how-
ever, having once obtained a tooting in the
island, resolved, as history shows us has
always been the case under similar circum-
stances, to strengthen themselves in their
own position, as well as assist their ally the
King of Kandy, and, from some trifling pri-
vileges in trade, gradually encroached upon
their assigned limits till ultimately, after
severe fighting, they subjected the principal
maritime provinces, and, in spite of the many
and desperate efforts of the Kandians to expel
them, retained a fair hold of their conquests
for nearly 150 years. At length, in 1632,
the Kandians called in the Dutch to their
assistance, and in a short period, by
their united efforts drove out the Portu-
guese. But the Cingalese soon found that,
it they had got rid of a bad master, they
had exchanged him fur a worse. The Dutch,
more powerful and energetic than their prede
coessors, attempted the entire conquest of the
island; but' the fatal jungle fever destroyed
their troops, and for a century or so still left
the central provinces unconquered, though the
maritime provinces, with all that remained of
the trade and commerce of the country, fell to
the successors of the Portuguese. During the
last great war,when we were opposed to Holland,
we executed a series of successful operations
against the Dutch provinces of Ceylon, which
were ultimately ceded to us by treaty, and in
our possession they have remained ever since.
However, the native kingdom of Kandy still
occupied the central districts of the island.
In 1803 we became embroiled with that king-
dom, and a long and bloody war was, as in the
former case of the Dutch, unsatisfactorily ter-
minated with " a tacit suspension of hostili-
ties." In 1815 the cruelties and oppressions
of the reigning King of Kandy had so alienated
the affections of his subjects and chiefs that
they invited the assistance of the British
power to deliver them from his tyranny. A
small force suddenly entering the kingdom
took possession of the country, captured the
King, and firmly established the British do-
minion within the interior of the island. Such
is a slight sketch of the more modern history
of Ceylon. The vast commerce of the island
was in the first instance checked by the re-
strictions of the Portuguese and destroyed by
the monopolies of the Dutch. It has remained
for us, by the judicious abolition of such re-
strictions, and by a careful attention to the
internal improvement of the country and the
encouragement of cultivation, to revive the
old commercial spirit of the people, and to lay
the foundation of a progressive prosperity.
On the antiquities and chronicles of the
island Mr. Sullivan scarcely tenches : even
the scenery, which is allowed to be, in some
parts of the island, the finest in the world,
does not much please him. He cannot enjoy
fine scenery after a lung ride and when he is
hungry, or even when it is to be found at the
top of a high hill. It must be "made to fit for
him. Sonic of his remarks, however, are wade
in better spirit and with more discruninatiou.
His description of the effect produced by the
first 4ppearance of the Cingalese with their

_._.~._.

DECEMBER 16, 1854

petticoats and back-combs is striking enough
for extract :
On landing at Point de Galle you are beset by a non-
descript and anomalous crowd, attired in scanty petticoats
Teaching to the anclee, parasols in their hands, and their
long hair drawn off the forehead, and turned up behind
with a high tortoiseshell comb. These peculiarities of
dress, together with their full busts and effeminate features,
and the waddling gait caused by the restraint of the petti-
coats, impress the traveller with the idea that he has
landed amongst a nation of women ; but when assured of
their masculine gender, the similarity amongst them all is
so great that he immediately jumps to the conclusion that,
on the other hand, there are no women at all ; and it is not
till he has had some days' experience that he begins with
any success to discriminate between the male and female
portion of the community. The only visible distinction
between the sexes consists in the women wearing rather
shorter jackets than the men, enjoying generally rather
coarser features, and dispensing with the masculine appen-
dages of combs and parasols.
When watching those mincing conceited creatures sitting
in groups, combing and annointing their long black hair,
I have felt infinitely more disgust at their occupation than
I have ever experienced in viewing the amicable phrence
logical investigations mutually exchanged by Italian beggars
at Naples and elsewhere.

The Cingalese firmly believe in the trans
migration of souls; and so far do they carry
their confidence in the truth of their creed that
" a man, when oppressed by his superiors or
" condemned by the judge," Mr. Sullivan tells
us, " expresses his intention of returning in a
" future state as a cobra to bite his oppressor's
" children, or as an elephant to ravage his
"crops." However, in the main, they care
very little about their religion, and still less,
apparently, about any other :
The Cingalese will attend chapel, listen with attention,
and apparently assent with understanding, but he will go
from chapel to his idol, from the preaching of Christianity
to the abominations of his degrading profession, without
the slightest trace of change effected.
Mr. Sullivan conceives that missionaries
make few sincere converts, though Roman
Catholic priests secure worshippers by bring-
ing their rites into close resemblance with
those of Buddhism :
I have frequently entered Roman Catholic, chapels in
Ceylon, and seen the priest seated on high at the altar,
surrounded by trashy finery and blazing lamps, receiving
the grovelling prostration of the worshippers, and it could
not fail to strike me that the ceremony appeared too much
like the adoration of the priest himself, the substitution of
an animate for an inanimate object, and that the idol-wor-
ship of the Buddhist, and the pnest-worship of the Roman
Catholic, were but different forms tending to the same end.
Among the native inhabitants of Ceylon,
which consist of three distinct races—viz.,
Cingalese, which inhabit the interior and sea-
coasts ; the Malaoars, which occupy the north-
ern and the eastern portions of the island ; and
the Moors, who are the industrial and com-
mercial class in every part of the island—there
is yet among the Cingalese a singular tribe,
called Veddalis, about whom many most ex-
traordinary theories have been long extant,
such as their having tails and being allied to
the baboon, all of which absurdities Mr. Sulli•
van very properly ridicul"s, and tells us, from
his own personal observation, that they are
Much " the same as any other species of the
" human race, with the exception of being
" very small,"

which probably arises from the unhealthiness of the dis-
tricts they have for generations inhabited, and from poverty
and scarcity of nourishment. Living in a country which
is frequently overrun by elephants, they are doubtless
obliged occasionally to take refuge in the trees ; but that
these are not their ordinary habitations may be proved from
the fact of their possessing huts and temporary villages,
and cultivating their plantains, much as the other races of
Ceylon. They speak a language but very slightly under-
stood by the cingalese themselves, they never marry out
of the tribe, and avoid as much as possible all intercourse
with the natives.
They are probably the last remnants of the
aboriginal inhabitants of Ceylon, slowly but
surely dying out.
The elephant hunts contain the usual
amount of hairbreadth escapes, disappoint-
ments, and successes. The following is a lively
sketch of the daring hardihood men show
when pursuing a flying enemy. Having started
three or four elephants. who took refuge in a
muddy tank, the hunting party pursued them
across the tank with great energy, but much
trouble :
We were up to our waists in mud, and were so helpless
in the case of a charge that, had he been strong, he might
with ease have destroyed the whole party. Our only chance
of escape, as we settled afterwards, would have been to
have anhmerged ourselves entirely, and to have hid our
diminished heads under some lotus leaf. This last charge,
like that of Charlemagne's famous Paladin at RonearaUM,

THE VitESS.

although unavailing to himself, secured a retreat for his
companions ; and, although wt continued the chase to the
opposite batik, any farther chance of overtaking them was
hopeless. it was almost dark when we reached the hank ;
and, really, when 1 threw myself down on dry land, 1 don't
know that I ever felt so completely exhausted—every
muscle and every nerve had been at full stretch, under
considerable excitement, for nearly an hour and a half.
Our chance of being crushed by the elephants, or smothered
in the mud, was agreeably varied by the prospect of being
shot by some of the gun carriers, who, in their excitement
(their nerves never being of the very best), floundered
about with guns at full-cock, or hammers on the nipples;
and with muzzles pointing in every imaginable direction,
front their masters' heads to their own stomachs, none of
which circumstances comluced much to our chance of
reaching the opposite side in safety. One nnlbrtunate
coolie, up to his shoulders in mud, In handing • gun to
his master, also in the same hampered position, let off both
barrels close to his own head, but so great was the excite-
ment that I, who happened to be rather nearer than the
rest of the party, was the only one present, excepting his
master, who was aware that any accidental discharge
whatever had taken place. Another of the party, calling
upon his gun-carrier for his second gun, had the pleasure
of receiving one already discharged, and did not discover
his error till, advancing close to the elephant, he had the
satisfaction of hearing both hammers click one after
another, without so much as the explosion of a copper cap.
One instance of the remarkable sagacity of
the elephant will be read with curiosity :
We passed an elephant working on the road ; and it was
most interesting to watch the half-reasoning brute ; he was
tearing out large roots from the ground by means of a chain
and hook, fastened round his neck with a species of collar.
Ile pulled like a man, or rather like a number of men,
with a succession of steady hauls, throwing his whole
weight into it, and almost going down on his knees, turning
round every now and then to see what progress he was
making. Really the instinct displayed by the elephant in
its domesticated state is little short of reason in its fullest
sense. There is no doubt they do think, and also act
upon experience and memory, and their capacity seems to
increase in an extraordinary degree from their intetconrse
with man. The remarkable nicety and trouble they take
in squaring and arranging the blocks of hewn stone when
building a bridge is incredible, unless seen ; they place
them with as much skill as any mason, and will return two
or three times to give the finishing touches when they
think the work is not quite perfect. They retire a few
yards and consider what they have effected, and you almost
fancy you can detect them turning their sagacious old
noddles on one side, and shutting one eye in a knowing
manner, to detect any irregularity in the arrangement.
Sidney Smith's anecdotes of elephants' reason in his lee•
tures on moral philosophy, although most astonishing, do
not fail for the want of corroboration. I heard numerous
anecdotes almost as extraordinary as those he mentions;
and, amongst others, one of an elephant at Tinnevelly that
had been engaged all day in piling logs of timber, but in
the evening, becoming angry at some promise his keeper
had neglected to fulfil, he went of his own accord and undid
every stroke of work he had completed during the day.
Upon the whole, this book will be found
lively and entertaining. as far as Mr. Sullivan's
personal adventures are concerned, but we
think that 11 is remarks upon the habits and
manners of the Cingalese, and particularly
upon the Buddhist faith, are too prejudiced
for a traveller in this enlightened age.

Rural and Historical Gleanings from Eastern
Europe. By Miss M. A. Birkbeck. London :
Darton and Co.

Is a modest and unpretending little volume
Miss Birkbeck has given us some of the most
characteristic sketches that we remember to
have read of Hungary and the Hungarians.
(lathered partly from a friend who had long
wandered about the country, and partly from
social conversations with illustrious exiles
Miss Birkbeck has so skilfully handled
her materials as to give her book an
aspect of originality and truth. Her le
gends and tales of the Theiss and the Puszta
are told in a most picturesque but at the same
time simple style.
The remarkable geographical position of
Hungary seems in a great measure to have
influenced her destiny as a nation. Situated
in that valley of the Danube which separates
the Eastern from time Western world, related
to the former by descent and to the latter by
civilisation, perpetually exposed to the attacks
of the Asiatic nomadic tribes on the one side, and
on the other to the ceaseless aggressive po
Hey of the German Emperors, her very exis-
tence as a nation has oftimes trembled in the
scale, and her history from the days of Arpad
to the revolution of '4B is only a record of
constant warfare and continued struggle. Yet
the energy of her enthusiastic people has
never been destroyed by this constant warfare ;
the Hungarian's love of country and of race
has grown out of ages of conflict. and
nationality is now so stamped upon his chtt