genuity has not failed to devise
expedients for this all-important object.

[Footnote 1: "Man not being created an aquatic animal, his skin cannot
with impunity be exposed to perpetual moisture, whether directly applied
or arising from perspiration retained by dress. The importance to health
of keeping the skin _dry_ does not appear to have hitherto received due
attention."--PICKERING, _Races of Man_, &c., ch. xliv.]

From what has been said, it will be apparent that, compared with
continental India, the securities for health in Ceylon are greatly in
favour of the island. As to the formidable diseases which are common to
both, their occurrence in either is characterised by the same appalling
manifestations: dysentery fastens, with all its fearful concomitants, on
the unwary and incautious; and cholera, with its dark horrors, sweeps
mysteriously across neglected districts, exacting its hecatombs. But the
visitation and ravages of both are somewhat under control, and the
experience bequeathed by each gloomy visitation has added to the
facilities for checking its recurrence.[1]

[Footnote 1: "It is worthy of remark, that although all the troops in
Ceylon have occasionally, but at rare intervals; suffered severely from
cholera, the disease has in very few instances attacked the officers; or
indeed Europeans in the same grade of life. This is one important
difference to be borne in mind when estimating the comparative risk of
life in India and Ceylon. It must be due to the difference in comforts
and quarters, or more particularly to the exemption from night duty, by
far the most trying of the soldiers' hardships. The small mortality
amongst the officers of European regiments in Ceylon is very
remarkable."--_Note_ by Dr. CAMERON, Army Med. Staff.]

In some of the disorders incidental to the climate, and the treatment of
ulcerations caused by the wounds of the mosquitoes and leeches, the
native Singhalese have a deservedly high reputation; but their practice,
when it depends on specifics, is too empirical to be safely relied on;
and their traditional skill, though boasting a well authenticated
antiquity, achieves few triumphs in competition with the soberer
discipline of European science.

CHAP. III.

VEGETATION.--TREES AND PLANTS.

Although the luxuriant vegetation of Ceylon has at all times been the
theme of enthusiastic admiration, its flora does not probably exceed
3000 phaenogamic plants[1]; and notwithsta