General character of the Cingalese, with
some of their proverbs.
Here are iron and crystal in great plenty. Saltpetre they can make. Brimstone, some say, is here; but the King will not have it discovered. Steel they can make of their iron. Ebony is in great abundance, with choice of tall and large timber. Cardamoms, jaggory, arrack, oil, black-lead, turmeric, salt, rice, betel nuts, musk, wax, pepper—which grows here very well, and might be had in great plenty, if it had any vent [sale]—and the peculiar commodity of the island, cinnamon. Wild cattle also, and wild honey in great plenty in the woods: it lies in holes or hollow trees, free for any that will take the pains to get it. Elephants' teeth. Cotton, of which there is good plenty, growing in their own grounds: sufficient to make them good and strong cloth for their own use, and also to sell to the people of the uplands, where cotton is not so plentiful.
All these things the land affords, and might do it in much greater quantity; if the people were but laborious and industrious. But that, they are not. For the Cingalese are naturally a people given to sloth and laziness. If they can but any ways live, they abhor to work. Only what their necessities force them to do, they do: that is, to get food and raiment.
Yet in this I must a little vindicate them. For what indeed should they do with more than food and raiment; seeing that, as their estates increase, so do their taxes also? And although the people be generally covetous, spending but little, scraping together what they can: yet such is the government they are under; that they are afraid to be known to have anything, lest it be taken away from them. Neither have they any encouragement for their industry, having no vent by traffic and commerce for what they have got.
"I have given pepper, and got ginger." Spoken when a
