e Portuguese rulers. The Tamils,
numbering a million, are not native to the island, like the Cingalese,
but have come from southern India as laborers on coffee and tea estates;
they are chiefly Hindus, although thousands have been converted to the
Christian faith. The Mohammedan Moormen, living on the coast,
approximate a quarter of a million in number. Europeans of all
nationalities, not including the British troops, total only 6,500, a
percentage of the island's human family to be computed in fractions.

The Cingalese seen chiefly in the towns wear their long hair arranged
like a woman's, and around their heads a large, semicircular comb of
shell, as has been said. The comb has nothing to do with religion or
caste--contrary to what a visitor is usually told; it merely announces
the wearer to be not of the coolie class, who carry sacks of rice and
cases of merchandise on their heads. Half the people of Ceylon wear no
head-gear, and not two per cent. know what it is to wear shoes.

[Illustration: REPRESENTATION OF BUDDHA'S TOOTH, COLOMBO MUSEUM]

Colombo's population is about 160,000. The capital is a handsome city,
with communities on seafront, on the shores of a sinuous lake, and
ranging inland for miles through cinnamon gardens and groves of
cocoanut-palms. Queen's House, where the governor resides, is a
rambling pile. The general post-office is the best building in the
capital, and the museum and Prince's club, close by, are entitled to
notice. The hard red-soil roads of the city extend for miles into the
palm forests, and are equal to any in the world. Government officials
and European commercial people live in handsome suburban bungalows
smothered amid superb foliage trees and flowering shrubs and vines.

What were called the maritime provinces of Ceylon were ruled by the
Dutch until 1796. But in that year England supplanted Holland, and in
1815 she secured control of the entire island by overthrowing the
Kandyan kingdom, for a long time confining European invasion to the
island's seaboard. Ceylon costs Britain little worry and practically no
expenditure. Strategically the island is valueless, save the benefit
accruing to England in controlling if need be the enormous coal heaps of
Colombo, and the maintenance there of a graving dock capable of handling
the biggest battleship. Four hundred miles of government railways earn a
tremendous profit, and moderate import and export duties on commodities
keep the coloni