locality and dignity of office, was the village
peon and post-holder, as graceless and lazy
;is any within the central province of the
island, and that is saying a good deal. It
would have been a difficult thing to have
shown that Puncheyralle, the post-holder, did
anything to entitle him to the name beyond
bestowing an occasional kick on the letter-
carriers or runners as they passed through
the village; yet the man grumbled at
receiving no more than five rix-dollars, or
seven shillings and sixpence a month, for the
discharge of these onerous duties. Puncheyralle
had a rather bustling little wife, who
did all the heavy work for him, except the
kicking; the pigs, the garden, the fowls, all
were in her charge, and while she and the
very small children cooked the meals, and
kept the house in order, their lord and
master lay on his back, or beat the tom-tom
or native drum, or perhaps gambled with a
neighbour for a few copper challies.

The remainder of the village was made up
of families generally poor enough, who
derived their sole support from the produce of
their patrimonial lands. In several instances
the domestic arrangements of these people,
with a view of keeping their little property
from dwindling away by frequent
subdivisions, were singular enough to an English
mind. There were two or three households
in which several brothers had but one wife
amongst them, and, more singular still, they
appeared to dwell together most harmoniously.

A picture of one of these groups is a
portrait of them all. Poor to abject misery in
all but rice and a few fine grains, these people
are invariably landholders, some of them on
an infinitesimally small scale. At times the
family will be large, swelled by the addition of
an aged grandfather or grandmother, or some
such relation, and with, generally, a numerous
progeny of all ages. Beyond the culture of
their rice, of primary importance, the space
that produces their few additional necessaries,
such as chillies, tobacco, and fine grain, is
little enough. A few of them possessed one
or two buffaloes; most of them had a
caricature of a pig and a few scarecrows of fowls;
but there was only one milch cow in the
entire range of Malwattie.

It was truly astonishing to see how early
the young children were put to tasks of
strength. The boys were made to look after
the buffaloes and the rice-fields, while the
girls were set to weave mats, pound the rice
from the husk, fetch water, and such work.
Often have I seen a little delicate child, six
or seven years of age, staggering up a tolerably
steep path, with an infant placed astride
across its little hip, and a huge earthen chattie
of water on its head. Such early toil as this,
equally early marriage, and generally poor
and scanty diet, lead to one inevitable result
—premature old age, and hastened death.

There was but one exception to the
sameness of the population of Malwattie; it
consisted of a small household, not far from
the foot of the hill near the Vihara, and
closely adjoining the bullock-track or bridle-
path leading past my estate from the high-
road. Here, beneath a pretty tope of never-
fading trees, where blossom, and fruit, and
sweetest perfumes played their part all
through the year, dwelt a blind old man and
his pretty grand-daughter. Of their history
I had gleaned but little, just sufficient to
make me feel an interest in their welfare.
The tiny hut they dwelt in was not more
diminutive than neat: so clean, and white,
and fresh within; without, all was beauty
and order. Had a whole legion of mountain
sylphs and wood nymphs been busily employed
about the place all night long and every night,
it could not have been kept in more perfect
and picturesque neatness. The little fence
around the cottage was so nicely trimmed;
the garden in front so well swept and watered;
the orange and lemon trees so carefully
tended, and always so delighted to bear
plenty of fruit for dear little Dochie to
gather, that they didn't bend and droop with
the heavy clusters of golden wealth as some
trees would have done, but actually danced
and leaped about in the morning and evening
breezes, as though their burden were no
burden, but a capital joke.

Pretty little Dochie, gentle little Dochie,
was not more than ten years of age when I
first made her acquaintance, one hot morning
in the dry season. I caught her gathering
some oleander blossoms and roses, and
country jessamine, and thought I had never
seen anything half so lovely, barring her
colour. I reined in my pony and asked her
for a draught of water; instead of looking
alarmed, as most of her class do when thus
accosted, she smiled good-naturedly, and
tripped into the little cottage. I was off my
nag and in the pretty flower-garden when
she came out with a cocoa-nut shell of—not
water but, bless the dear child—foaming rich
white goats' milk. I am not quite sure, but
I rather think I must have kissed her as I
returned her the homely flagon; at any rate,
we became the best of friends, and it ended
in Dochie taking me to see her old blind
grandfather, who was busily working at a
net of some sort, and then to inspect one of
the neatest little farm-yards I had ever seen
out of old England. The whole place was a
perfect miracle of industry and neatness, and
I could not help asking how she managed to
keep it so. It appeared that their neighbours
assisted, at certain seasons, in working the
garden and bringing it into good order, and
that the old man helped her to carry the
water from the little bamboo spout, which
the villagers had fixed for them to convey a
supply from the hill stream at some distance,
to the extremity of their property.

They appeared to be in want of nothing
that could make them comfortable; as to
money, they had little enough, their sole