past continually the funniest sturdy little men with their loin-cloths
tucked up, pulling light-looking chairs on high wheels with people in
them. These chairs are called rickshaws and are the chief way of getting
about. Very comfortable they are too, and quite cheap; we will go in
them presently. The men who pull them have funny chignons of frizzy
black hair sticking out under their little red caps, and it would be
easy to mistake them for women. That attendant from the hotel at your
elbow is asking you if you'll take another lemon-squash; he is quite a
different sort of man from the runners, isn't he? Much taller and with a
mild expression; his straight hair is adorned by a curved tortoise-shell
comb of considerable size; he wears it round the back of his head, and
how he makes it stay on among his very scanty locks is a miracle. His
flowing white garments are immaculately clean, and he doesn't look as if
he could kill a mosquito! He is a Cingalee, and the little men who run
in the rickshaws are Tamils; these races live side by side in Ceylon,
though there are many more Cingalese than Tamils. They are quite
distinct, though they both originally came over from India, and in the
old days when the Cingalese gave a line of kings to the island they were
always fighting the Tamils; to-day both live together peacefully under
British rule.

This place is a positive bazaar! There is a deep, crafty old merchant
sitting like a spider over his pile of sheeny silks in the corner--he
hopes to get good prices from the unwary tourist; there is another with
a stall of beautiful brass and copper hand-worked things, and others
with jewellery and carved ivory. But more interesting than any is the
snake-charmer, who has just squatted down in front of us, prepared to
give us an entertainment.

That is a cobra he takes out; you know it by its large, flat head. It
seems sleepy and stupid, but its bite is deadly. It is possible, of
course, that he has abstracted the poison-fangs which make its bite
fatal, but even without them I shouldn't care to handle it. It is a huge
beast, seven or eight feet long I should guess. See how he teases it; he
is making it rise up on its coils and swing this way and that, darting
its forked tongue out at him, and yet all the time it fears him. He has
a marvellous power over it; its narrow, wicked light eyes are fixed on
his face; it never looks away. Now he begins to play to it on a little
flute; it is dancing