I find in my diary that on the 6th of November I went out for my first drive, and that in the company of Arabi and Abd-el-Aal I went into Colombo, and that we saw Gregory’s statue together in the Cinnamon Gardens, and three days later that I attended a public dinner given in my honour by the local Mohammedans. At this I made a public speech. Arabi had proposed the Queen’s health in a few words of Arabic, and my own speech took the form of a return of thanks. From the date of their arrival at Colombo, the exiles had been exceedingly well treated by the Governor of the Island and his subordinates, and were in the habit of being invited to all the great receptions at Government House. And on the other hand, with their own co-religionists, they had attained a position of the highest consideration, Arabi being in the habit of leading the prayer in the principal mosque on Fridays.
The Mohammedans of Ceylon are known there as “Moors,” a name given them originally by the Portuguese, which is applied also to the Mohammedans of the south-west coast of India. They belong to a far older Mohammedan settlement than the Moguls of the north, being, in fact, the descendants of Arab traders who in the first centuries of Islam came not as conquerors, but as commercial settlers from Oman and Yemen. Unlike the Mohammedans of the north, they are a pushing and prosperous community, having most of the shop-keeping trade in their hands, especially that of jewel merchants. There is also a comparatively small Mohammedan community of Malays, the descendants of a force of Malay soldiers formerly maintained by the Dutch. With them I found living on terms of friendly intercourse the Brahminical Tamils, who consider themselves to be of Dravidian race, originally from Southern India, though they have probably mixed much with the Aryans in past times. They, too, are a pushing race, commercial and combative, and had driven the Cingalese out of half the island before the arrival of the Portuguese in Ceylon. The Dravidians number here and in Southern India some seventeen millions, and the Tamils are considered their leading branch. Their form of Brahminism is of a purer type than in the north, as they hold closer to the Vedas, so much so that the Brahma Suraj reformers make no way with them; their doctrines have been forestalled. They are also more particular about the consecration of their idols, and the performance of their religious ceremonies. The head of their community at Colombo, Ramanatha, told me that he had been shocked in Northern India at the rough and ready idols even the princes worshipped, unconsecrated, in their own houses. He says there is a good feeling between all the members of the Asiatic creeds at Colombo, but the Catholics, Methodists, and Wesleyans are on bad terms with these. The Catholic population is large along the coast. On the 9th the Tamils entertained me at a banquet, to which the Egyptian Pashas and several Europeans were also invited. These were Mohammedan Tamils, of whom there were about one hundred present. Though unfit for it, for I was very tired, I made a long speech, or rather sermon, to them on the subject of Mohammedan reform, and reform in their political life. It was rather a venturesome attempt, but was well received by them. I spoke, of course, in English, which all understood.