The Calcutta Review (Volume 77) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883. Excerpt: ... THE CALCUTTA REVIEW. NO. CLIII. Art. I.--THE MATERIAL PROGRESS OF CEYLON. THE material condition of the Island of Ceylon has lately shown marked progress, and, as its prosperity seems now destined, after a critical period of depression, to continue without check, some description may not be uninteresting of an island which has been styled "the richest possession of the English Crown." Whereas nature had intended it to be a mere appendage of whatever state chanced to be the most powerful kingdom of Southern India, the force of destiny has at all times availed to keep its fortunes apart and distinct from those of its neighbours on the great mainland of Hindustan. The Island of Ceylon, however, has enjoyed its successive dynasties, and has passed through vicissitudes similar to those which larger States have undergone. Undisturbed by the revolutions that were of periodical occurrence on the other side of the famous Adam's Bridge, and which were marked by the triumphs of antagonistic races and religions, its own history represented in miniature the same tragic features as marked the fortunes of greater nations and wider Empires. The same peculiarity attaches to it still, now that it has passed under the sway of the Anglo-Saxon. The schoolboy knows the proximity of Ceylon to India, but only a few persons are aware how widely apart their respective fortunes are sundered. While the possessions of the old East India Company have expanded in the course of a century into an Empire larger, more thickly peopled, and far more prosperous than any previously established in the plains below the snowy crests of the Himalayas, the island of Ceylon has indeed passed under the same all-conquering thraldom, but its destiny does not depend on the decrees of the magnates of Cal...