The native tribes of Ceylon cannot be said to form a progressive race, even under the advantages which modern civilization affords them. Their present condition is one of dormancy. Those who form the rising generation, after enjoying school advantages to a certain degree, on arriving at the age of responsibility lapse, with some exceptions, into the condition of their parents. Thus many of our Western Indians, who in youth have been educated in schools presided over by the whites, return finally to their native surroundings, promptly adopting from choice the barbaric methods and rude life of their roaming tribes. There is a certain wild instinct which it seems almost impossible to eradicate. A few native Singhalese have availed themselves of the opportunities freely extended to them, and have risen to position and influence both with their own race and the European population. There are also descendants of English fathers and native mothers, who, after enjoying special advantages, have developed into intelligent manhood, and who form a recognized element of the community. A native Singhalese is, or was very lately, judge of the supreme court of Ceylon, while the offices of attorney-general and government solicitor were, and we believe still are, filled by natives. Others of the same race are respected as county judges, magistrates, and leading barristers.
So far as current history can be relied upon, we find that Ceylon was, from five hundred years and more before the Christian era up to the time of its annexation to Great Britain, the almost constant victim of foreign and civil wars. Indeed, this seems to have been the chronic condition of the world at that period. The Portuguese first and the Dutch afterward took possession of the island, the latter being finally expelled by the English, who promptly fortified and have held it ever since.
The rapacity, bigotry, and cruelty which characterized the rule of the Portuguese in Ceylon forms one of the darkest pages in the history of European colonization. An eminent writer upon the period says very tersely and truly that these people first appeared in the Indian Ocean in the threefold character of merchants, missionaries, and pirates, more fully illustrating the last named than the other two occupations. No other nation save Spain has written its autobiography in such glaring letters of blood.