which he took that opportunity to bring down to sell, and few or
none of their cartridge-boxes were furnished with either powder or ball,
though a piece of paper was thrust into the hole to save appearances. We
saw a few swivel guns and pateraros at the town-house, and a great gun
before it; but the swivels and pateraros lay out of their carriages, and
the great gun lay upon a heap of stones, almost consumed with rust, with
the touch-hole downwards, possibly to conceal its size, which might
perhaps be little less than that of the bore.

We could not discover that among these people there was any rank of
distinction between the raja and the landowners: The land-owners were
respectable in proportion to their possessions; the inferior ranks
consist of manufacturers, labouring poor, and slaves. The slaves, like
the peasants in some parts of Europe, are connected with the estate, and
both descend together: But though the landowner can sell his slave, he
has no other power over his person, not even to correct him, without the
privity and approbation of the raja. Some have five hundred of these
slaves, and some not half a dozen: The common price of them is a fat
hog. When a great man goes out, he is constantly attended by two or more
of them: One of them carries a sword or hanger, the hilt of which is
commonly of silver, and adorned with large tassels of horse hair; and
another carries a bag which contains betel, areca, lime, and tobacco. In
these attendants consists all their magnificence, for the raja himself
has no other mark of distinction.

The chief object of pride among these people, like that of a Welchman,
is a long pedigree of respectable ancestors, and indeed a veneration for
antiquity seems to be carried farther here than in any other country:
Even a house that has been well inhabited for many generations, becomes
almost sacred, and few articles either of use or luxury bear so high a
price as stones, which having been long sat upon, are become even and
smooth: Those who can purchase such stones, or are possessed of them by
inheritance, place them round their houses, where they serve as seats
for their dependants.[110]

[Footnote 110: The specification of the Welch here is very vulgar, and
the more so, as obviously sarcastic. Deeper or more scientific
observation would have led Dr Hawkesworth to some general principle
which produces a love of ancestry in all our species. Mr Gibbon has very
expressively described