Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-09

They excel in the manufacture of tortoise
shell combs. which they wear in their hair.
Some of these combs are eXQuisiteIy carved.
The artisans of Trincoma1ee and Point
de-Galle have made a speciality of these
combs for more than two thousand years.
Strabo, the Roman geographer and his
torian. mentions that In his day before the
birth of Christ, the Cingalese made tor
toise-shell combs and wore them in their
hair Ptolemy, seventeen hundred years
ago, wrote:
hair unlimited growth and bind it the
crown Of their heads after the manner of
women
Proof positive of how unchangng is the
east
Once a Race of Empire Builders.
The Cingalese were not always a despic-
able race. Two or three thousand years
ago the empire of Lanka, as Ceylon vas
then called was one of the greatest in
Asia. Like the ancient republic of Venice,
it held the gorgeous east in fee" Today
the ruins of the buried cities of Anurad-
hapura and Pollonarua-more wonderful
even than the Egyptian ruins in the valley
of the Nile-attest the magnificence of an
empire greater than Babylon or Nireveh.
The Cingalese were an Aryan people who
descended from northern India and con-
quered Ceylon. In the golden age of Lanka
they founded one of the greatest of all the
ancient civilizations, spurred on by an IN
tense religious enthusiasm engendered by
the dawn of Buddhism in its purest and
mobiles form.
For centuries they prospered. until. grow
ing by degrees more and more effeminate.
they were conquered by Tamil invaders
from southern India. The Tamils enslaved
them, and soon ground all remnants OF
nobility and civilization out of their char
acter.
Then came the Portuguese and the Dutch.
who made slaves of Tamils and Cingalese
alike. Now, under the fatherly rule of the
British, the Cingalese are able to indulge
their efreminacy to their hearts content.
Their Fondness for Perjury.
1t goes without saying that they are
very docile people. who give little or no
trouble to their rulers. Their greatest fault
as citizens. is their ineradicable fondness
for perjury. In Ceylon a judge is unable to
believe a word that nine out of ten of the
witnesses say. He starts with the assump-
ton that both sides are lying, and then
tries to strike the happy mean.
The CingaleSe are paSSionately fond of
litigation and so keep the judges busy.
They are absurdly sensitive A harsh word
will lead to an inveterate feud between two
families, which finds an outlet in trumpet
up charges in the courts.
Like most towards. they bitterly
malicious. Doctors practicing in Ceylon
say that a Cingalese who has been treach-
erously stabbed by another will often make
up his mind to die out of sheer spite. SO
that his enemy may be hanged for murder.
More remarkable still, his relatives connive
at his plot. They keep his wound open, give
him improper food, and let him go without
medical attendance. They mourn for him,
but they think that he is dying in a noble
cause.
One case of this kind is often quoted in
Ceylon.
A certain Cingalese called another a
fool. The aggrieved party nursed his
wrath for months and then brought false
charge of burglary against his enemy, sup
porting 1t by the evidence of a host of his
relatives. The Judge. knowing the facts,
acquitted the accused. who thereupon
argued to himself:
We'll. I didn't steal as that man said 1
did; but now I'll have revenge by waylay
Ing him some dark night. 'robbing him of
all he has and giving him good thrash
ing
So he got his friends together and next
evening they attacked the man in bamboo
grove, knocked him senseless and stole his
money
When the man came to he decided that
to send his ten assailants to Jail for rob-
berry with violence would not satisfy his