Ceylon) have a peculiar aptitude for law. Their
minds have that turn which enables them to
appear to advantage as pleaders. Many of them
have much legal acumen and readiness of speech,
and, what is more, they know the language of
the people. Now, I know what Mr. Briefless
is going to say. You are going to tell me, sir,
that you took the highest prizes for Greek and
Latin; that you know German, French, and
Italian, and that you are a nob at languages.
All very true, no doubt; but, I will be bound
to say, that, if you remain in Ceylon until you
are a grandfather, you will never be able to sit
down with a common villager and understand
his speech. There are some of us who have
passed two examinations in Cinghalese, and who
may be able to carry on a conversation with an
educated man in that language; but it is as
different talking to and understanding one of
these, and talking to and understanding the
common people, as it would be for a Frenchman
who could converse in English with
yourself, to go to Cornwall or Yorkshire and talk
to a clodhopper in the local dialect.

If you are able to tell your horsekeeper in
the vernacular to take home your horse, feed
him, and bring him back, and he does not
misunderstand you and leave you to walk, you will
do as much as I expect of you. You will therefore
be obliged to employ an interpreter, and
that will be a great drawback on your success,
for either your private interpreter will, for and
in consideration of "tip," communicate to the
opposite party what has passed between you and
your client, or your client will suspect he has,
which, so far as your interests are concerned,
will be quite as bad. Moreover, the Ceylonese
proctors naturally prefer placing their cases in
the hands of advocates who are their own
countrymen, and often of their own kith and kin,
so that your business must mainly be that which
is entrusted to you by Europeans; and as their
number is limited, a few barristers from
England fill the field, and there is little or no room
for more. There are open to the bar two
district judgeships, worth one thousand two
hundred pounds a year each; but what are
they among so many? There are also a few
small appointments called deputy Queen's
advocateships, worth some four hundred pounds a
year, with one or two prizes; but these are open
to Ceylon as well as to English lawyers, as,
indeed, the two district judgeships are; and they
are hardly worth acceptance by a man who
wishes to rise.

Hear the sum of the whole matter. If
you cannot do better anywhere else—and I
should call it "better" to do much less
elsewhere—if you are willing to lead a single life for
eight or ten years, and when married to part
with your children at nine years of age, with the
prospect of paying very much for them, and
seeing very little more of them for the rest of
your natural life; to be taken ill just when you
are getting your head above water, and to have
to send your wife to England, an invalid, at any
time when you least expect it, and to see her
suffer many maladies while she is with you;
then come to Ceylon and make the most of
your position. Contentment is a plant that may
be cultivated in any soil.

In the year 1854, when John Company was
still king, and when Tanjore had a rajah, I
crossed over to India from Ceylon, and visited
the Madras Presidency. My principal object
was to judge for myself which system of government
was the better: that of Leadenhall-street
or Downing-street. We of Ceylon, of course,
stood up for Downing-street. They of India for
Leadenhall. Many a fight had I on the subject,
and at last I resolved to go and judge for
myself how things went on on the great continent.

I first made for the capital, Madras, and then,
purchasing two ponies, a cart, and two yoke
of oxen, started on my travels, moving along
slowly by night, and taking such sleep as my
jolting vehicle would allow of, mounting one of
my steeds before dawn, and pushing on for the
"Travellers' bungalow" ere the sun rose. At
each principal station in my line of route I
halted for a few days, made acquaintance with
the collector, judge, and other officials, visited
the courts, jails, &c., and made myself acquainted
as well as I could with the state of things.
There is not a more hospitable class in the
world than the European residents in India. At
every station, I formed acquaintances; at some,
friendships. From all, I met with civility and
kindness. A man would see me in church,
and observe that I was a stranger. An hour
after, he would send his bullock-carriage for
me, with a note, asking me to come and stay
with him. He would be ignorant of my name,
and address me by some descriptive designation:
say, "The gentleman at the Travellers' bungalow."
I look back to some of the days thus
spent at those stations as among the pleasantest
of my life. Among other places, I visited
Tanjore, and was immediately asked to stay with a
gentleman resident there, whom I will call Mr.
Post, and who lived a short distance outside the
fort, which in those days was regarded as the
domain of the rajah. A queer dirty old place
was that fort—worth seeing, however, if one
desired to form an idea of what an Indian town
was, without European supervision. The rajah's
palace was a five-storied building, dilapidated
and squalid, and, like most Indian buildings,
the front was behind and the back in
front; that is, it faced inward, and one saw
from the street only closed windows. Attached
to the palace was a menagerie containing some
half-starved tigers, cheetahs, and other animals.
Several ill-kept elephants stood munching
leaves, and all around spoke of neglect and
shiftlessness. The rajah himself was almost a
prisoner, his rides were circumscribed, his
expenditure was under rigid control, the rest of
his dominion was under British direction, and
only within the walls of the fort had he
the semblance of authority. He himself was
like most Oriental princes, the victim of ill-
directed passions, and the creature of his