were some rather curious tales afloat on the
subject of the last assessment on rice-lands.
At the office of the Government agent of the
district he was believed to be as active and
honest as nine-tenths of the native headmen,
though to be sure, that was not saying very
much for him. The villagers looked up to
him with the utmost veneration and respect,
and no wonder, for on his fiat depended the
amount of rice-tax their lands were to pay.
He was a venerable-looking old gentleman,
with a flowing white beard, a keen quiet eye,
and an easy-going habit that might have been
called dignity or laziness. It was his duty
to render to the Government officers a just
account of the industry, if such a term can be
applied to anything Cingalese, of his village;
to furnish returns of the increase or decrease
of the population; to give notice of all crimes
and offences committed, and in short, to
represent the local government in minor
details. For all this, no salary was paid him.
He was satisfied with the honour of the
office; and yet, strange to tell, this Korale
had so far increased his property by gaining
nothing, that he was a man of some substance
when I left the place, owning some hundreds
of cattle, arid rich in pasture lands. Education
was unknown to him; he could scratch
a little Cingalese on the dried leaves used in
place of paper, and I believe could count as
far as ten. His most complicated accounts
were all on a decimal system, and by the aid
of numerous symbols known but to himself,
and the erudition of the friendly priest, he
contrived to transact a multitude of statistical
business with the authorities.

The abode of this old patriarch would have
furnished a study for a lover of the antique.
Everything seemed in keeping with his long
white beard. The doors and windows, the
couches and three-legged table, all were hoary
with years. Even the atmosphere had a
musty smell about it, as though it had been
keeping him company ever since he was a
little boy.

In the midst of thick foliage, as bright
and green as the cottage was dark and
cankery, it seemed at a distance like a huge
wart on the rich vegetation. The coffee, the
banana, the cotton, the jambo, the paw-paw,
besides an infinity of other useful things,
grew in wild profusion. Of what we
should call garden he had none, nor did he
need any, for the friendly villagers kept his
daily wants amply supplied from their own
little scanty patches. At early dawn, the
little narrow pathway leading circuitously
to his door, might be seen tracked by men,
women, and children, laden with fruits,
vegetables, and eggs, for the Korale's larder;
he might well grow stout and glossy, and
contented with his lot. There was such a
supply of vegetable diet introduced through
his crazy old doorway each morning, as might
have fully satisfied the vegetarians of Great
Britain, Avith something to spare for the pigs.
But the old gentleman disposed of it all; for
he had a little colony of feudal dependants
hanging about his heels, living, or rather
existing, in low cattle-sheds behind his own
barn of a place. These serfs tracked him
wherever he went; one held a paper
umbrella or a talipot leaf over him, in his walks:
another carried his stick of office; one beat
off the musquitoes; another fanned him to
sleep with a punkah. In short they did
everything for him, save eat and sleep; and
these functions he performed for himself to
perfection.

The old Korale was generally pleased with
my visits, for they added to his importance in
the eyes of the little community. He lived
quite alone; his wife had been dead some
years, and he had lost his only child by fever
His days were mostly passed in sleeping,
smoking, and eating, varied occasionally with
a stroll round his rice-fields, or those of his
neighbours. It was seldom that he visited
Kandy, the ancient capital: as for Colombo,
or any part of the sea-coast, the wildest
freaks of his imagination would never induce
him to contemplate a journey so far from the
spot of his birth.

It was a curious sight to behold this ancient
being leading such a hedge-hog existence:
rolling himself up in indolence after every
meal of rice and curry, in his little, darkened,
cavern-like verandah; and there, if no guest
arrived, falling asleep, until the next meal
aroused him from his torpor. I have found
him thus, clad in semi-barbaric pomp, reeking
with dirt and swelled with importance, in a
balloon-shaped Kandyan hat, a flowing robe
and loose jacket, with shoulder-of-mutton
sleeves fastened by silver bangles; an enormous
mass of white muslin, wrapped, fold upon
fold, around his waist. A pretty little mountain
stream fell trickling and bubbling past
the door, over stones and sticks, and flowers
and herbs, until it was lost in the rice-fields
below, playing and gambolling as though each
tiny wave had been some frolicsome wood-
nymph. Little could be seen from that shady
portal, and not much more heard, beyond the
hum of myriad insects and the distant cry of
birds of the jungle.

Often have I sat with the Korale chatting
on local and other matters, for he was a man
of gossip, though of limited ideas. I tried in
vain to make him understand the position
and importance of other countries: of their
great superiority to the Kandyans, and of the
features which distinguished us people of the
west from Orientals. He could not be
persuaded that Europe was larger, or a better
place than Ceylon; that better corn and
vegetables were grown in England than on
the Kandyan hills; or that a modern drawing-
room was a more comfortable sort of place
than a Cingalese Korale's reception-room, with
earthen floor and leafy ceiling. Of some
description of politics he had gleaned a faint idea
from the reported contents of one of the local