The present population of Ceylon is composed of Singhalese or Ceylonese, de scendants of immigrants from Hindustan who entered the country in the 5th century B.C., Malabars or Tamils, originally from southern India, Moors, Malays, Veddas and a small pro portion of Europeans and their descendants. The Singhalese inhabiting the coasts are a mild, timid race, obsequious to strangers, and hospitable and humane. Their stature is rather below the middle size; their limbs slender, but well shaped; eyes dark, finely cut features, hair long, smooth and black, turned up and fixed with a tortoise-shell comb on the top of the head; color varying from brown to black, or rather from the lightest to the darkest tints of bronze. The Singhalese of the interior, or Kandian Singhalese, are a superior race, being stouter, handsomer, and of more manly and independent bearing, with a greater degree of intelligence. The Malabars of Cey lon are similar in all respects to those of the continent. The Mohammedans or Moors are an energetic and industrious people, and en gross a large proportion of the commerce and traffic of the island. The Veddas are supposed to be a portion of the aboriginal inhabitants of Ceylon. They inhabit the most secluded and inaccessible parts of the island, and subsist en tirely on wild fruits and animals. A cloth round the loins is their only clothing; and their habitations, generally of small dimensions, are formed for security among the branches of large forest trees. They are a robust and hardy race, but extremely peaceable and inof fensive. The other inhabitants of the coast con sist of Dutch, Portuguese and English, some Malays or natives, of the Eastern Archipelago, a few Chinese and Parsee traders and a varied population sprung from the intermixture of these races with each other. The descend ants of the Dutch and other Europeans are known as burghers. The population is rapidly increasing. In 1832 it scarcely amounted to 1,000,000; while in 1881 it was 2,750,000. In 1901 the total was 3,576,990, including 2,334,817 Singhalese, 952,237 Tamils, 224,719 Moors and in 1908, 4,038,456. The census of 10 March 1911 showed the number of inhabitants to be 4,110,367. The number of laborers on the plantations was about 510,000 in 1912. This includes a large number of coolies who come from India for employment.
Religion, Language, More than half the population are said to be Bud dhists, and about 800,000 are of the Hindu reli gion (sects of Brahmanism). Buddhism chiefly prevails in the interior and generally among the Singhalese of the seacoasts. It is main tained and protected by the British government, agreeably to the treaty of 1815. On the west ern and southwestern coasts numbers of the Singhalese profess the Roman Catholic religion. There are a number of Episcopal clergymen in the island, subordinate to the bishop of Co lombo; various other Protestant bodies have places of worship, but the Protestants are less than half the number of the Roman Catholics. The Singhalese have a colloquial language pe culiar to themselves, but their classic and sacred writings are either in Pali or Sanskrit. The Malabars use the Tamil. English is be coming more and more common, and there is scarcely a roadside village in Ceylon now where the traveler could not find some persons to speak English, or interpret for him. The gov ernment has a department of public instruction, and good progress is being made in education throughout the island. On 1 Jan. 1912 there were more than 325,000 children participating in public instruction, a number of the schools being maintained or aided by the government.
There are schools maintained also by the Church Missionary Society, by the Wesleyan, the American and the Baptist Missionary so cieties, besides a number of private and some regimental schools.
Antiquities, History, etc.— The Singhalese annals contain a historical record of events for 24 centuries; and their authenticity, as regards description of ancient towns and buildings, and other works of art, is established by existing ruins, proving that the island had been, at a remote period, inhabited by a powerful and nu merous people. Long forgotten, and for ages hidden by dense jungle growths, the ancient capitals of Ceylon now afford a wonderland of interest for the archeological investigator and the tourist alike. Scores of bell-shaped relic
houses, ranging up to 400 feet in height and 1,500 feet in circumference, form the gigantic ruins that now make up the principal monu ments to the magnificent civilization, the rival of Rome in luxury and architectural grandeur. The cities were two in number, Anuradhapura, the ancient Singhalese capital, from about 1000 B.C. to 500 A.D., and Polonarawa, the medieval capital, which flourished in the 12th century. The grandeur of the mighty capital Anurad hapura can be guessed from the fact that the king's pleasure garden in the centre of the city was 20 square miles in extent. After his conversion to Buddhism, King Tissa donated these gardens for religious uses. The ruins of the temples and dagabas erected here form the majority of the monuments that not only bear record to the vastness and splendor of that but are now —2,000 years later — tak ing their places among the wonders of the world.
Starting from the centre of the modern na tive town, numbering scarce 50,000 souls, on a tour of the ruins, one comes at first to the for est of monoliths remaining from the original 1,600 granite columns upon which rested the remarkable Brazen Palace. As this edifice, built by King Dutthagamini about 200 B.C. for his Buddhist monks, is typical of all the pal aces of that day, the following description written about 500 A.D. by Buddhist monks is of interest: "This palace was 100 cubits square — length, breadth and height all being the same. In it there were nine stories, each with 100 apartments. All these apartments were highly finished in silver; all the cornices thereof were embellished in gems. The flower ornaments thereof were also set with gems, and the tinkling festoons were of gold. In the centre of the great hall of the palace was an ivory throne, on one side of which was a sun in gold, on another the moon in silver, on a third the stars in pearls,° ending with "the building was covered with brazen tiles, hence its name, the Brazen Palace.° Next in import ance comes the Ruanweli Dagaba. A dagaba, or relic-house, was a bell-shaped mound of solid bricks built both as a monument for and to protect for all time a tiny sacred relic hid den in the centre of its base. The Ruanweli is in a much ruined state, but enough remains to show its ancient structure. The Thuparama Dagaba, near by, is in good repair. It was built by King Tissa in 306 B.C., and antedates any ex isting structure in Ceylon or India, and is still, though much smaller than the others, a re markable monument to the skill of its builder. Originally 176 ornamental pillars of graded heights surrounded the Thuparama; of these but 31 now remain standing. The Abhayagi riya Dagaba is 405 feet high, with a dome 360 feet in diameter and a base covering eight acres. Other monuments are the king's palace with its beautiful "moonstone" entrance and decorative guard stones by the side; marble bath tanks equaling Rome's in luxury; elephant houses and great tanks where the state ele phants wont to take their morning plunge, and where their wild descendants still come to bathe; the curious Isurminia temple dug out of a mammoth boulder on the edge of an artificial lake, and finally the sacred Bo-tree itself, trans planted here in 288 B.C. and said to be the old est cultivated tree in the world. It was orig inally a branch of the fig tree under which Buddha had been accustomed to sit and medi tate. Polonarawa, the medieval capital, lay 40 miles southeast of Anuradhapura. A British archeological commission is at work here, ex cavating and restoring the grandest of ruins. Temples, monasteries, dagabas rivaling the Pyramids in magnitude engage the attention of the visitor. The most interesting of all rel ics discovered was the temple called the Gal Wikare, and the three giant figures at its en trance—a sitting figure of the Buddha 15 feet high; a statue of Ananda, Buddha's disciple, 23 feet high, and a recumbent statue of Buddha, 46 feet long. Other remarkable remains are the theatres, bathing halls, gardens, fountains, public buildings that shone with roofs, doors and windows of gold, and the group of ruined monuments at the rock of Sigiri. At Dambulla there i,s a celebrated cave temple, dating from the 1st century B.C.