knows how it is, but the fact is certain,
that a good steaming, at a tremendous heat,
fixes the colours by some chemical action,
without in the least hurting their lustre:
so the shawls go into the steaming-box, and
come out of it able to bear as many washings
as you please, without any change of colour.
After drying, in a heat of one hundred and
ten degrees, they go upstairs to be surveyed,
fringed, folded and pressed.

It seems a pity that the fat, easy, lazy
Bokharian, and the slim, lithe, patient
Hindoo, should not come to Paisley, and see how
shawls are made there. To the one, shaving
his camel on the plain, and the other, throwing
his antique shuttle under the palm, how
strange would be the noise, and the stench,
and the speed, and the numbers employed,
and the amount of production! To the one,
it may be the work of years to furnish to the
travelling merchant strips of eight inches
wide, enough to make a shawl; and to the
other, the production of such an article is an
event in life; while here, at Paisley, if the
pattern requires months, the weaving of the
most genuine and venerable kind occupies
only a week. "We do not believe that the
simple and patient Oriental will be driven
out of the market by us, because there is no
promise, at present, of our overtaking their
excellence. We hope there will be room in
the world of fashion for them and us for
ever—(the "for ever" of that world). We
shall not go back to their methods, and it is
not very likely that they should come up to
ours; so we shall probably each go on in our
own way, which is what everybody likes best.

THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS.

THE Coffee Estate on which I resided as
manager, was situated in one of the wildest
and most beautiful districts of the island of
Ceylon, elevated far above the burning
lowlands, where fragrant spices and waving
palms told of rich soils and balmy winds.
The plantation was on a broad table-land,
fully three thousand five hundred feet above
the sea-level, forty miles removed from the
only European town in the interior, and at
least ten miles from any other white man's
dwelling. Within a short walk of the lower
boundary of my property was a small Kandyan
village, containing within itself the very pith
arid marrow of Cingalese society—a true type
of the entire community of the island. As I
mixed so unreservedly and frequently with
the people, and saw so much of their
everyday-life, it may be interesting to some to see a
faint outline drawn of this place.

Malwattie, which was its name, signifies
literally, " a garden of flowers," and such in
truth it was, when I first visited it. The
reader must not suppose it a place bearing
the most remote resemblance to any collection
of houses in this country. There is not
such a thing as a row of houses or huts to be
seen: shops are unknown in that primitive
place, and until later years, no such incubus
as a tavern-keeper or arrack-renter was
known there. Every little hut .or cottage
was carefully shaded from the view of its
neighbour; fairly established on its own
account—so much so, as though the inmates
had written up in barbarous Cingalese
characters, "No connexion with the house
next door." I never could learn that there
was any superstition among Cingalese hut-
builders as to the variation in the aspects of
their domiciles, but certain it was that no two
dwellings faced precisely the same points of
the compass. One would be north-east, and
the nearest to it would be north-east and by
east: you might fancy you had found another
facing a similar point, but on a careful
observation you would see that you could not
make it any better than north-east and by
east-half-east. I tried the experiment for a
long time, but was compelled at length to
give it tip. I had regularly " boxed the
compass" round the entire village.

Partly from long established custom, and
partly from a desire of shading their dwellings
from the heat of the sun, the Kandyans
bury their isolated huts beneath a dense mass
of the rankest vegetation. At a short
distance not a sign of human habitation could
be traced were it not for the thickly growing
topes of bananas, areka palms, and bread-
fruit-trees, which are ever found around and
above their quiet abodes.

Malwattie formed no exception to the
general rule in this respect; it was as snugly
hedged and fenced, and grown over, as was
Robinson Crusoe's dwelling after the visits of
the savages. Every tiny hut appeared to
possess a maze of its own for the express
purpose of perplexing all new-comers,
especially white men. The entire village did
not cover more than a quarter of a square
mile, yet it would have puzzled any living
thing but a bird to have visited all the
cottages in less time than half a day, and very
giddy, tiring work it would have been.

Small as was this primitive community, it
had its superiors. The leading men were the
priest of the little Buddhist Vihara, or shrine;
and the Korale or headman. I will not
distress the reader by putting the names of these
men in print, as they would be perfectly
unpronounceable, and, moreover, as lengthy
as the approaches to their own dwellings.
The entire names of one Cingalese community
would fill a moderately-sized volume. I will
therefore only speak of these men as the
Priest and the Korale.

The latter was a rather respectable man, as
things go in Ceylon; he was negatively
irreproachable in character. He had certainly
never committed murder or theft on the
Queen's highway. Perjury had not been
charged against him, and as for the faithful
discharge of his few official duties, no one
had ever called that in question, though there