The Tamil men are of good height, slim, with small limbs yet well formed, and have pleasing features and bronzed skins, very similar in hue to our North American Indians. The Singhalese are of a darker complexion, not so light in figure; they affect European dress, adding much ornamentation. They hold themselves of a superior class to the Tamils, engaging only in what they consider a higher line of occupation. The Tamils form the humbler and laboring population of the country. They fully recognize the distinction between themselves and the Singhalese proper, and they are universally called coolies. Caste is never disregarded among them, its infinite ramifications extending through all degrees and classes of the people, regulated by universally accepted ideas. This peculiar system was early introduced into the country from India, but was previously unknown here. It is difficult for the uninitiated to understand its real import. There are twenty or more castes rigidly adhered to, which may be rendered in numerical order of importance as follows: The husbandman's occupation comes first in dignity, followed by that of the fisherman; goldsmiths rank as third, blacksmiths as fourth caste, and so on in the following order: braziers, cinnamon peelers, washermen, barbers, potters, tom-tom-beaters in the temples, etc. Domestic intercourse between persons of different castes is inadmissible, and to marry below one's caste is considered to be disgraceful. Feelings of intolerable pride on the one hand and of abject humiliation on the other are thus created and perpetuated. In each caste the children must follow the occupation of the father; a carpenter's boys must be carpenters, and his daughters must marry carpenters. Caste is therefore absolute death to all promptings of ambition, according to native ideas. No one can hope to rise above the grade in which he is born, and no one makes the attempt. Nearly a century of English control has only served to confirm these Asiatics in the thralldom of caste. How could it be otherwise when the ruling power is itself a slave to the same idea? Sir Matthew Arnold says: "Aristocracy now sets up in our country a false ideal, which materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, and brutalizes our lower class."