Extreme length from north to south, from Point Palmyra to Dondera Head, 266 miles; greatest width, from Colombo to Sangemankande, 140 miles. Area, 24,702 sq. m., of which more than one-fifth is under cultivation.

Physical Features.-In natural scenery Ceylon can vie with any part of the world; and as it rises from the ocean, clothed with the rich luxuriance of a tropical vegetation, it seems to the voyager like some enchanted island of Eastern story. Its hills, 'draped with forests of perennial green,' tower grandly from height to height, till they are lost in clouds and mist. Near at hand, a sea of sapphire blue dashes against the battlemented rocks that occur at isolated points, and the yellow strands are shaded by groves of noble palms. In shape Ceylon resembles a pear, but its inhabitants more poetically compare it to one of their elongated pearls. Undulating plains cover about four parts of the island, and the fifth is occupied by the mountain-zone of the central south, which has an elevation of from 6000 to 8000 feet above the sea-level. Pedrotallagalla, the highest mountain in the range, attains the height of 8260 feet; the celebrated mountain of Adam's Peak, 7420 feet; and the tableland of Nuwara Eliya, 6210 feet.

Geology. The mountain-system is mainly composed of metamorphic rocks, chiefly gneiss, frequently broken up by intrusive granite. With the' exception of some local beds of dolomitic limestone, the gneiss is everywhere the surface rock, and the soil is composed of its disintegrated materials. The northern part of the island is rising; and the immense masses of corals continually increasing, retain the debris brought from the Indian continent by the currents of the sea, and thus form a flat, ever-increasing madrepore plain.

Metals and Precious Stones.-Iron can be obtained in great quantities, and anthracite and rich veins of plumbago exist on the southern range of hills. Gold has recently been found. The gems of Ceylon have been celebrated from time immemorial. Sapphires, rubies, the oriental topaz, garnets, amethysts, cinnamon stone, and cat's-eye are the principal gems and precious stones of the island. The declared value of the precious stones exported is about £10,000 annually; but as large numbers are purchased by passengers calling at Colombo and by native merchants for sale in Southern India, the actual value is doubtless very far in excess of the sum named. The pearl-fisheries of Ceylon were known at a very remote date in the commercial history of the world. Under the Portuguese and Dutch governments, and now under the British government, the pearl-fisheries form a monopoly, and are under the inspection of an officer, who reports when a sufficient number of pearl-yielding oysters have reached maturity, and when the prospect of a successful fishing is thus probable. The fishings are intermittent and occur at irreg. ular dates. In 1863 the value of pearls obtained was £56,000; in 1874, it was £10,000; in 1877, £19,000; in 1879-80, £29,500; in 1881, £59,800; in 1887, £39,000; and in the intermediate periods practically nothing. In 1890 the value was £17,000, in 1891 about £52,000, but in 1892-95 nothing. Rivers. The most important river in Ceylon is the Mahavila-ganga. It has its source in the vicinity of Adam's Peak, and after draining more than 4000 sq. m., it separates into several branches, and enters the ocean near Trincomalee. The south side of the island is watered by ten rivers of considerable size.

Harbours.-Galle, at the southern extremity of Ceylon, and Trincomalee on the eastern coast, are the only natural harbours capable of containing ships of large draught. The construction of a breakwater at Colombo, the capital of the island,

which provides safe anchorage for ships of any size in all weather, has concentrated the commerce of the island there, and has also attracted from Galle the mail and passenger steamers from Europe, India, Australia, and China, which used to coal and tranship at Galle. At Trincomalee are the naval stores and dockyard, and the harbour is the finest in eastern waters.

In climate, Ceylon has a great advantage over the mainland of India, and as an island enjoys a more equable temperature. The average for the year in Colombo (q.v.) is 80° in ordinary seasons. April is the hottest month; and in May the southwest monsoon commences amid a deluge of rain, and continues the prevailing wind till October, when the north-east monsoon sets in: 80 inches is the average annual fall of rain, though in an exceptional year 120 inches have been registered. The beautiful tableland of Nuwara-Eliya was first visited by Europeans in 1826, and is now used as a sanatorium. Here the thermometer in the shade never rises above 70°, while the average is 62°; the nights are cool and refreshing. The north of the island, including the peninsula of Jaffna, the plains of Nuwara-Kalawa, and the Wanny, may be reckoned as a third climatic division. Here the annual fall of rain does not exceed 30 inches, and irrigation is largely employed in agriculture.

Flora. The general botanical features of Ceylon are in many respects similar to those of Southern India. A very large number of the species of plants is, however, peculiar to the island. About 800 species (nearly 30 per cent. of the whole number found in Ceylon) are endemic-that is, found nowhere else in the world. The tree-vegetation of the forests is almost wholly composed of such endemic species, and not a few of endemic genera. The affinities and near alliances of these are with the plants of the Malay Islands and Peninsula. Hence, to speak more correctly, the flora of Ceylon partakes of an Indian as well as a Malayan character, but is identical with neither. As may be expected from the climatic peculiarities of the country the flora is greatly diversified. In the south-west mountainous parts of the island, with the exception of some grassy tracts called patanas and the plantations of tea, coffee, and cinchona, the slopes and summits are forest-clad. The trees are evergreen, with thick coriaceous leaves, growing closely together and forming dark jungles. The undergrowth is largely made up of gregarious plants known as Nilu, species of the genus Strobilanthes, which only flower at regular intervals of five, six, or seven years. Tree-ferns, often 25 feet in height, scarlet-flowering rhododendrons, numerous tufted bamboos, melastomads, and orchids are found in mountain forests. In the low country the vegetation is marked by the prevalence of palms, the cocoa-nut being pre-eminent. beautiful areca-palm, the feathery jaggery or kitul, and the fordly talipat are the glories of Ceylon lowland vegetation. In the recesses of low-country forests the trees are high and closely packed. Amongst the timber-trees the most valuable are the calamander, satin-wood, and ebony. Two very interesting and peculiarly slender tree-ferns grow in the hot steamy forests of Ceylon, as also the most admired of Ceylon orchids, Dendrobium Maccarthic. There has been extensive cutting down of forest in the mountains of Ceylon to establish plantations, and the lowlands have suffered no less severely by the indolent and improvident practice of native cultivation. As a consequence numerous foreign weeds, such as the lantana, white weed, and Spanish needle, have established themselves to the exclusion of native vegetation in the hills; while in the lowlands coarse grasses and worthless scrub have

The

tions, the same general character (see articles BUDDHISM, BURMA, &c.); and in Ceylon we find the three classes represented by the dagoba, or relic-shrine, the temple proper, and the vihara or monastery. The labour bestowed on these edifices in the early ages of the Singhalese monarchy is truly astonishing. In the north of the island, ruined cities buried for ages in the depths of the forest have been discovered, revealing monuments that in dimensions may almost compare with the pyramids of Egypt. The most remarkable of these vestiges of an early civilisation is Pollanarrua, the ancient capital of Ceylon; and here is the celebrated Gal-wihara, a rock-hewn temple.

Entrance to the Temple of Dambula.

The cave-temple of Dambula was built 100 B.C., and is the most celebrated in the island. The bell-shaped tapering dagobas of Ceylon, as relicshrines, answer to the pagodas of Burma-which they very much resemble-and the topes of Afghanistan. The ruins of the Jaytawanarama dagoba still reach the height of 249 feet; its diameter is 360 feet; and from base to pinnacle

The Ambustella Dagoba, Mihintala.

it is covered with trees of the largest size. The Ambustella of Mihintala is another remarkable dagoba. A very famous object in connection with Buddhism in Ceylon is the sacred Bo-tree (q.v.) of Anuradhapura. Amongst the antiquities of Ceylon must be mentioned those wonderful monuments of the former greatness of the Singhalese

people-the ruined tanks, with which scarcely anything of a similar kind, whether ancient or modern, can be compared. Thirty colossal reservoirs, and about 700 smaller tanks, still exist, though for the most part in ruins. The restoration of these magnificent works of irrigation has been for some time carried on by the government. In February 1888 the largest and most important tank in Ceylon, that of Kalawewa, was, after four years of labour, completely restored. It was built 460 A.D. to supply Anuradhapura with water, but has been ruinous for centuries. Now again it contains an area of seven square miles of water 20 feet deep, and supplies smaller tanks more than 50 miles distant.

The history of Ceylon may be conveniently divided into ancient and modern, and the latter into the Portuguese, Dutch, and British periods. The most famous of the Singhalese books is the Mahavansa, a metrical chronicle in the Pali language, extending from the earliest period to 432 A.D., and continued to 1756. The story begins with the invasion of Wijayo (543 B.C.), son of a petty Indian sovereign in the country watered by the Ganges. He subdued the Yakkhos, the aboriginal inhabitants; founded a dynasty that held undivided sovereignty in Ceylon for nearly eight centuries; and bestowed on his kingdom his patrimonial name of Sihala (whence Singhalese, Ceylon). In the reign of King Devenipiatissa (307 B.C.), Buddhism was established as the national religion, and his reign was further remarkable by the planting of the sacred Bo-tree, 288 B.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 B.C.), foreign mercenaries from the Coromandel coast, to whom the native sovereigns had intrusted the defence of the island. In 1071 A.D. a native dynasty was re-established in the person of Wijayo Bahu, which, for 100 years, delivered the country from the dominion of the Malabars. 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 Ceylon (1505); but it was in 1517 that they first formed a permanent settlement at Colombo for trading purposes. Their encroachments soon met with fierce resistance from the patriotic Kandyans. Amity, commerce, and religion,' was the Portuguese motto; but their rule in Ceylon 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 twenty years, when the fanatical zeal of Roman Catholic sovereigns for the propagation of the faith was replaced by the earnest toil of the Dutch traders to intrench their trading monopolies. But the purely military tenure of the Dutch was destined to give place to the colonisation 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 August 1795 an expedition under Colonel James Stuart landed at Trincomalee, which was speedily captured, and finally the garri son of Colombo surrendered on the 16th February 1796. By this capitulation, all the Dutch settlements and strongholds in Ceylon were ceded to the English; though the island was not formally an nexed to the British crown till the Peace of Amiens,

·

CEYLON

27th March 1802. The native sovereigns, however, continued in the possession of their mountain territory; but at length the Kandyan king, Wikrama Raja Singha, after perpetrating the most frightful atrocities on his own people, seized and murdered certain native merchants, British subjects, trading to Kandy. War followed, January 1815; Kandy was taken, and the tyrant sent a captive to the fortress of Vellore. On the 2d March 1815, a treaty was concluded with the native chiefs, by which the king was formally deposed, and his territories annexed to the British crown.

After the settlement of the Kandyan provinces, attention was drawn to the hill country of Ceylon as a probable field for the profitable investment of British capital and energy, and among other agricultural enterprises the cultivation of coffee was entered upon. The condition of soil and climate proved favourable, and the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, and the consequent labour difficulties, caused a rush towards Ceylon, and the area under coffee cultivation rapidly extended. The enterprise, though subject to all the vicissitudes incidental to tropical agriculture, steadily grew, and coffee soon became the staple export from the island; and the revenue directly and indirectly derived from it enabled successive governors to bridge rivers, to make roads and railways, and to restore many of the ancient irrigation works which, in the period antecedent to British rule, had fallen into disrepair. In 1869, however, a fungus (Hemileia vastatrix) attacked the leaves of the coffee-trees, and the energy of the tree which had hitherto produced fruit was now required for the constant reproduction of leaf. Everything which practice or science could suggest was tried to mitigate or overcome the pest, but in spite of all efforts it steadily increased in virulence, and the coffee-planters were obliged to turn their attention to other products of the soil.

Cinchona, cacao, cardamoms, and many other products were introduced with varying success, but it soon became plain that Ceylon was capable of becoming a great tea-producing country, and tea has become the chief factor in restoring the financial equilibrium. Cinnamon and cocoa-nut cultivation are chiefly in the hands of natives; tea, cinchona, cacao, and cardamom cultivation in the hands of Europeans; and the export table shows how, through the energy of the planters, new products have to a great extent replaced coffee.

In 1898 the export of coffee had decreased to 12.871 ewt., while that of tea had increased to 122,395,517 lb. The other principal exports were cinchona, 977,760 lb., and cinnamon, 4,281,165 lb. In the same year the value of the exports to the United Kingdom was: tea, £3,694,123; plumbago, £198,833; oil, £180,402; nuts for oil, £164,469; cocoa, £138,521; and cinnamon, £62,951. exports are ebony, cardamoms, areca-nuts, and dyes. The principal imports are cotton goods, salt fish, rice, coal and coke, spirits, and wines.

Minor

Ceylon is the largest and most important of what are known as the crown colonies of the British Empire. The government is administered by a governor aided by executive and legislative councils (the former consisting of five members, the latter of fifteen, partially elective), and municipal councils. Local boards and village tribunals give a measure of self-government to the people. The population of Ceylon, 2,763,984 at the census of iss1, had risen in 1891 to 3,008,239, of whom

2,000,000 were Singhalese, 750,000 Tamil immigrants and settlers, 200,000 Moormen (Mohammedans of Arab descent), 5500 Europeans, 20,000 Eurasian descendants of Portuguese and Dutch, 2500 Veddahs, 22,000 of mixed race.

The revenue in 1889 was 15,299,877 rupees, and exceeded the expenditure by 400,000 rupees; in 1898 the revenue had increased to 25, 138,669 rupees, while the expenditure was 22,843,852 rupees, showing a larger surplus. The total imports, including specie, were valued at 97,893,058 rupees, and the total exports, including specie, at 85,372,622 rupees. There are 298 miles of railways open, and 1727 miles of telegraph wire in operation."

See works on Ceylon by Sir James Emerson Tennent (2 vols. 1859), Captain Suckling (2 vols. 1876), John Ferguson (1887 and 1893), Miss Gordon Cumming (1891), Alan Walters (1892), H. W. Cave (1894 and 1897), and Emil Schmidt (Leip. 1897).

Cezimbra, a coast town of Portugal, about 18 miles S. of Lisbon. Pop. 6815.

gist, was born January 2, 1817, at Briançon. Chabas, FRANÇOIS, a great French EgyptoloThough at first engaged in commerce, he found time to become a learned linguist, but it was not till 1851 that he gave himself up to the study of hieroglyphics. The first results of his studies appeared in 1856, followed by a series of invaluable books and papers, elucidative chiefly of two important periods of ancient Egyptian history-the conquest of the country by the Hyksos, and the time of their expulsion. Among the more import(1868), Histoire de la XIX. Dynastie et spécialement ant of his many books are--Les Pasteurs en Egypte des Temps de l'Exode (1873), and Études sur l'Antiquité historique d'après les Sources égyptiennes (2d ed. 1873). From 1873 to 1877 he edited L'Egyptologie. He died at Versailles, May 17, 1882. Chabasite. See ZEOLITE.

Chablis, a town in the French department of Yonne, 12 miles E. of Auxerre. It gives name to an esteemed white Burgundy (q.v.) wine. Pop.

2363.

Chaco, EL GRAN. See GRAN CHACO.

Chaconne (Fr.), an obsolete dance, probably Spanish (chacona, from Basque chocuna, 'pretty'). The movement is slow, and the music, a series of variations on a ground bass, mostly eight bars in length, appears in sonatas as well as in ballets.

Chad, LAKE. See TSAD.

Chad, ST (Ceadda), was born in Northumbria, became a pupil of St Aidan, spent part of his youth in Ireland, and in 666 became Bishop of York. Doubt having been cast on the validity of his consecration, he withdrew in 669, but was immediately made Bishop of Mercia, fixing the see at Lichfield (q.v.). He died in 672, after a life eminent for humility and sanctity. See Life by Warner (1871).

Chadwick, EDWIN, C.B., a social reformer, born in the vicinity of Manchester, 24th January 1801, studied law, and was called to the bar in 1830. He attracted the notice of Jeremy Bentham by an article on Life Assurances. He early devoted his attention to questions of social, sanitary, and political science, and was by Lord Grey's government appointed an assistant-commissioner to inquire into the operation of the poor-laws. His report, published in 1833, commanded great attention, and laid the foundation of the later systems of government inspection. On the organisation of the new Poor-law Board, Chadwick was appointed secretary, In connection with this Board, and the General Board of Health, Chadwick for twenty years was energetic in improving the administration of poorlaw funds and the sanitary condition of the country. His report on interments in towns (1843) laid the