to have reached its acme. Americans who have
traveled in Germany, for instance, have often experienced disgust at
the debasing services required of the sex in that country. The author
has seen women, in Munich, carrying hods of bricks and mortar up long
ladders, where new buildings were being constructed, while hard by
their lords and masters were drinking huge "schooners" of lager beer
in taprooms, and lazily smoking foul tobacco.

Loitering beneath the shade of the trees contiguous to their cabins,
queer family groups of Singhalese natives watch the passing stranger
with curious, questioning eyes. Clothes are of little consideration in
a climate like this, and consequently nudity is the rule. The
preparation of food is intrusted mainly to Nature, whose bountiful
hand hangs ripe and tempting nourishment ever ready upon the trees,
where all are free to pluck and to eat. It is curious to see how
easily a native man or boy, with a rope of vegetable fibre passed
round his thighs and thence about the trunk of a palm, will, with feet
and hands thus supplemented, ascend a cocoanut-tree eighty feet or
more, to reach the ripe fruit. He moves upwards as rapidly as one
might go up a tall ladder. It is true, the rope sometimes fails, a
broken neck follows, and a fresh grave is required to decently inter
the remains. This is said to be one of the most "fruitful" causes of
fatal accidents in Ceylon. This sort of catastrophe, and poisonous
cobra bites, are almost as frequent and deadly in the island as
electric car accidents are in Boston or New York.

As one regards these lazy, betel-chewing, irresponsible children of
the tropics, idling in the shade of the palms, it does not seem
strange that they should lead a sensuous life, the chief occupations
of which are eating and sleeping. All humanity here appears to be more
or less torpid. There is no necessity to arouse man to action,--effort
is superfluous. The very bounty of Nature makes the recipients lazy,
dirty, and heedless. They live from hand to mouth, exercising no
forecast, making no provision for the morrow. It is the paradise of
birds, butterflies, and flowers, but man seems to be out of place; he
adds nothing to the beauty of the surroundings; he does nothing to
improve such wealth of possibilities as Providence spreads broadcast
only in equatorial regions. Bishop Heber's lines alluding to Ceylon
were certainly both pertinent and true: "Where only man is vile."

We were j