administration of C. is vested in a governor, who is assisted by an executive council of five members, and a legislative council of fifteen members. The governor's salary is £7,000 per annum. In 1876 the revenue was £1,375,888, and the expenditure £1,276,930. The chief items of revenue are the customs, averaging £286,000; licenses, £150,000; sales and rents of put,ne rands, £230,000. The colon made very great progress under the able adminiqrabon of sir H. Ward. The civil and judicial establishments of the colon cost nearly £200,000.
The following are the trade returns r the five years 1970 to 1874: Exports from Imports of British Years. Imports., Ezports. ion to the United Home Produce Kingdom. Into Ceylon.
1870......... £4,634,297 £3,803, 730 £3,450,974 £908,415 1871 4,797,592 3,634,853 3.167,673 928,807 1872.... 5,169,524 3,139,060 3,163,153 1,017,753 1873 5,574,358 5,439,591 4,331,006 1,052,072 1874. 5,691,860. 4,687,388 3,600,492 1,158,283 The value of the staple coffee exported from Ceylon to the ITnitell Kingdom was, in 1867, £2,814,060; in 1869, £2,867,724; in 1871, £2,623,263; in 1872, £2,341,601; in 1873, £3,692,333; and in 1876, £2,550,688. In 1876, cocoa-nut oil valued at £236,856, and cinnamon at £119,700, were exported to the United Kingdom. To the ancient world, C. was fatuous as a place of traffic. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Arabians traded to its ports; and such as geographical position and natural pro ductions, seem to identify Point de Galle with the Tarshish of the Hebrew historians.
The history of C., of which the limits of this article will only allow the briefest pos sible outline, may be conveniently divided into ancient and modern, and the latter into the Portuguese, Dutch, and British periods.
The records of its early history came to light in 1826, and 31r. Turnour, devoting himself to their study, composed an Epitome of the History of C., front the year 543 n. c. to 1798 A.D.; and he records the reigns of• 165 kings, who reigned during this space of 2,341 years. The most famous of the Singhalese books is the Allithawanso, a metrical chronicle, in the Pali language, which gives an account of the island during the above 23 centuries. The story begins with the invasion of Wijayo (5-13 u.c.), son of a petty Indian sovereign in the country watered by the Ganges. He subdued the Yakkhos, the aboriginal inhabitants; married a daughter of one of the native chiefs, whom he subsequently repudiated for an Indian princess; and founded a dynasty that held undi vided sovereignty in C. for nearly eight centuries. He bestowed on his kingdom his patrimonial name of Sihala (whence Singhalese, Ceylon), and promoted the settlement of colonists from the mainland. In the reign of king Devenipiatissa (307 n.c.), Bud dhism was established as the national religion, and his reign was further remarkable by the of the sacred bo-tree, 288 n.c.; and now commenced the erection of those stupendous buildings already noticed. The next important epoch in Singhalese history is the usurpation of the Malabars (237 p.c.), foreign mercenaries from the Coromandel coast, to whom the native sovereigns had intrusted the defense of the island. Several Malabar invasions are chronicled in the history of C., and these fbreigncrs long con tended with the native princes for supreme authority. Passing on to 1071 A.D., a native dynasty was then re-established in the person of Wijayo Bahu, which, for 100 years, delivered the country from the dominion of the 3lalabars. Prakrama Bahu commenced a reign, in 1153, the most renowned in the records of Ceylon. He devoted himself to religion and agriculture, and besides many notable religious edifices, he caused no less than 1470 tanks to be constructed, subsequently known as the "seas of Prakrama."
Thirty years after the death of this monarch, the Malabars landed with a large army, and speedily conquered the whole island. In 1235, a native dynasty recovered a part of the kingdom. During the reign of Dharma Prakrama IX. the Portuguese first visited C., 1505; but it was in 1517 that they first formed a permanent settlement at Colombo for trading purposes. Their encroachments soon raised the patriotic Kandvans, and it is a remarkable fact, that though at the first visit of the Portuguese in 1505 they were even ignorant of the use of gunpowder, they, after a while, excelled their enemies as musketeers, and were finally able to bring 20,000 stand of arms to bear against them. " Amity, commerce, and religion," was the Portuguese motto; but their rule in C. is a sad story of rapacity, bigotry, and cruelty. They were at last driven from the island by the Dutch in 1658, after a contest of 20 years, when, as sir J. E. Tennent remarks, " the fanatical zeal of the Roman Catholic sovereign for the propagation of the faith, was replaced by the earnest toil of the Dutch traders to intrench their trading monopolies; and the almost chivalrous energy with which the soldiers of Portugal resisted the attacks of the native princes, was exchanged for the subdued humbleness with which the mer chants of Holland endured the insults and outrages perpetrated by the tyrants of Kandy upon their envoys and officers." But the purely military tenure of the Dutch was des tined to give place to the colonization of the British. It was during the great European war succeeding the French revolution, that the English gained possession of the island. On the 1st Aug.1795, an expedition under col. James Stuart landed at Trincomalee, which was speedily captured, and finally the garrison of Colombo surrendered on the 16th Feb. 1796. By this capitulation all the Dutch settlements and strongholds in C. were ceded to the English; though the island was not formally annexed to the British crown till the peace of Amiens, 27th Mar. 1802. The native sovereigns, however, continued in the possession of their mountain territory; but at length the Kandyan king, Wikrama Raja Singlia, after perpetrating the most frightful atrocities on his own people, seized and murdered certain native merchants, British subjects, trading to Kandy. War fol lowed, Jan. 1815; Kandy was taken, and the tyrant sent a captive to the fortress of Vet lore. On the 2d Mar. 1815, a treaty was concluded with the native chiefs, by which the king was formally deposed, and his territories annexed to the British crown.
Since then, the island has made rapid strides in material prosperity. The mountain forests have been replaced by plantations of coffee, of which there are now about 500 under cultivation, of 150,000 acres, giving an average crop of 950,000 cwts. per annum. Many important public works have been completed, and others are still in progress. Several good roads have been constructed, including a niagnifieent mountain-road between Colombo and Kandy, and there is a railway 92 in. in length. In 1874, there were 243 government schools, with 11,719 pupils; 882 mission schools, with 44,449 pupils; and 329 private schools, with 9,029 -pupils.
See Ceylon, Physical, Historical, and Topographical, etc., by sir James Emerson Ten nent (Lond. 1859); Christianity in Ceylon, by the same author (Load. 1850); The States man's Year-book, for the current year; and Ceylon, a General Description of the island, by an officer, late of the Ceylon rifles (1876).