[Footnote 1:  The popular error of thinking curry to be an invention of the Portuguese in India is disproved by the mention in the Rajavali of its use in Ceylon in the second century before the Christian era, and in the Mahawanso in the fifth century of it.  This subject is mentioned elsewhere:  see chapter on the Arts and Sciences of the Singhalese.]

The use of fruit—­Fruits are abundant and wholesome; but with the exception of oranges, pineapples, the luscious mango and the indescribable “rambutan,” for want of horticultural attention they are inferior in flavour, and soon cease to be alluring.

Wine.—­Wine has of late years become accessible to all, and has thus, in some degree, been substituted for brandy; the abuse of which at former periods is commemorated in the records of those fearful disorders of the liver, derangements of the brain, exhausting fevers, and visceral diseases, which characterise the medical annals of earlier times.  With a firm adherence to temperance in the enjoyment of stimulants, and moderation in the pleasures of the table, with attention to exercise and frequent resort to the bath, it may be confidently asserted that health in Ceylon is as capable of preservation and life as susceptible of enjoyment, as in any country within the tropics.

Exposure.—­Prudence and foresight are, however, as indispensable there as in any other climate to escape well-understood risks.  Catarrhs and rheumatism are as likely to follow needless exposure to the withering “along-shore wind” of the winter months in Ceylon[1], as they are traceable to unwisely confronting the east winds of March in Great Britain; and during the alternation, from the sluggish heat which precedes the monsoon, to the moist and chill vapours that follow the descent of the rains, intestinal disorders, fevers, and liver complaints are not more characteristic of an Indian monsoon than an English autumn, and are equally amenable to those precautions by which liability may be diminished in either place.

[Footnote 1:  See ante, p. 57.  It is an agreeable characteristic of the climate of Ceylon, that sun-stroke, which is so common even in the northern portions of India, is almost unknown in the island.  Sportsmen are out all day long in the hottest weather, a practice which would be thought more than hazardous in Oude or the north-west provinces.  Perhaps an explanation of this may be found in the difference in moisture in the two atmospheres, which may modify the degrees of evaporation; but the inquiry is a curious one.  It is becoming better understood in the army that active service, and even a moderate exposure to the solar rays (always guarding them from the head,) are conducive rather than injurious to health in the tropics.  The pale and sallow complexion of ladies and children born in India, is ascribable in a certain degree to the same process by which vegetables are blanched under shades which exclude the light:—­they are reared in apartments too carefully kept dark.]