CEYLON 409 CEYLON a regular place of call for the vessels of various lines. A safe and commodious harbor has been provided for Colombo, the capital, on the W. coast. The N. and N. W. coasts are flat and monoto- nous, those on the S. and E. bold, rocky, and picturesque, with exuberant vegeta- tion. The mountainous regions are con- fined to the center of the S. and broader part of the island. Their average height is about 2,000 feet, but several summits are upward of 7,000 and one over 8,000 feet high, the culminating point being Pidurutallagalla, 8,296 feet. Adam's Peak, reaching 7,420 feet, is the most remarkable from its conical form, the distance from which it is visible from the sea, and from the legend that thence Buddha ascended to heaven, leaving in evidence a gigantic footprint. The rivers, though numerous, especially in the S. and S. W., are merely mountain streams, navigable only by canoes, and that but for a short distance from their mouths. The most important, the Maha- welli-ganga, which rises near Adam's Peak, and falls into the sea by a number of branches near Trincomalee, has a course of 134 miles, and drains upward of 4,000 square miles. There are a few pretty extensive lagoons in the island yielding large quantities of salt, but no lakes worth noticing. Climate and Productions. — In respect to climate it is found that where the jungle has been cleared away, and the land drained and cultivated, the country is perfectly healthy ; but where low wood- ed tracts and flat marshy lands abound it is malarial and insalubrious. Most of the animals found on the opposite conti- nent are native to this island, excepting the tiger. Elephants are numerous, es- pecially in the N. and E. provinces, and licenses for their capture and exporta- tion are issued by government. The wild life of the island includes bears, buf- faloes, leopards, hyenas, jackals, mon- keys, wild hogs, several species of deer, porcupines, armadilloes, mungooses, the pangolin or scaly ant-eater, the loris or Ceylon sloth, fiying-foxes, crocodiles, nu- merous snakes, partly poisonous, and a great variety of birds of brilliant plum- age. In the luxuriance of its vegetable productions Ceylon rivals the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and in some re- spects bears a strong resemblance to them. Its most valuable products are coffee, tea, rice, cinnamon (which is found almost exclusively in the S. W.), and the cocoa-nut and Palmyra-palm. Attention has been directed latterly to the cultivation of cinchona, cacao, and silk. The chief mineral products are iron, plumbago or graphite, and a vari- ety of gems, including sapphires, rubies, etc. The pearl-fisheries of Ceylon are famous. Commerce arid Finance. — The princi- pal productions are cocoa-nuts, which in 1917 represented an acreage of 904,674; rice, 702,165; tea, 508,779; rubber, 251,- 500; cocoa, 41,280; cinnamon, 39,930; grains other than rice, 133,028. The chief minerals are plumbago and mica, the former of which has an average annual production of 30,000 tons. The total foreign trade of Ceylon in 1918 reached $126,218,222. Of this amount $57,657,242 represents imports and $68,560,980 exports. The public debt in 1917 was about $27,000,000, the yearly revenue $23,500,- 000, and expenditure $21,300,000. The railway mileage open for traffic in 1918 was 714. There were 524 postoffices and telegraph wires with a length of 6,953 miles. The clearances of ship- ping in 1917 were 6,153,778 tons. The exports comprise coff'ee, tea, plumbago, areca-nuts, cocoa-nut oil, fiber and ker- nels (copra), cinnamon, cinchona, cacao, etc. The principal articles of import are manufactured goods, chiefly from Great Britain, as cotton manufactures, ap- parel and haberdashery, iron and steel manufactures, machinery, etc. ; from other countries, dried fish, rice, wheat, sugar, tea, cowries, etc. The island is provided with a system of excellent roads, and the railways have a length of about 200 miles. The chief industry is agriculture; manufactures (coir-mat- ting, baskets, cotton cloth, etc.) are un- important. The Ceylon currency consists of rupees and cents. The weights and measures are those of Great Britain. Govemm,e7i:ft.' — Ceylon is one of the Bi'itish crown colonies, the government being conducted by a governor and two councils, executive and legislative, of both of which the governor is president. The chief sources of revenue are the customs duties, railway receipts, land- rents and sales, licenses, and salt-farms. People. — Buddhism prevails in the in- terior, and generally among the Singha- lese of the sea-coasts. The Singhalese have a colloquial language peculiar to themselves, but their classic and sacred writings are either in Pali or Sanskrit. The Hindu religion (Brahmanism) pre- vails among the Tamils or population f Indian extraction, which forms a large proportion of the inhabitants of the N. and N. E. districts. The Tamils speak their own Tamil tongue. The inhabitants are divided in accordance with religions as follows: Buddhists. 2,791,120; Hin- dus, 1,580,450: Mohammedans, 319,965; Christians, 451,584. Schools under the
