them to a log of wood by way of security, which, by preventing them from grazing in a manner sufficient for their support, soon reduces them to a state wholly unfit for any kind of service.

In order to prevent these inconveniences, it would be advisable to put the bullocks in several small divisions, each under the care of a Congany or Tindal, who should be answerable for the treatment of the bullocks of his divisions; and experienced drivers, accustomed to the care of cattle and to load them properly, should be employed. It would be also desirable that some trust-worthy noncommissioned officer should be directed to examine the backs of the cattle daily, and to see that their loads are properly adjusted.

If, on the other hand, the detachment be small, and only intended for an incursion for a few days into the enemy's country,, when every thing will depend upon rapidity of movement, bullocks will not be found to answer; their pace is much too slow for such operations, and it is almost impossible

to get them on by night. Coolies alone will here answer the purpose; and with them a great deal of managment is necessary. The common mode of making up their loads in gunny bags, used for holding rice on shipboard and in stores, is liable to two objections:

1st. They afford no defence against the weather, the rain penetrating the bags and mildewing the rice.

2dly. The cloth of which the bags are made is very coarse, and badly sewed; and the rice consequently makes its way through the interstices. The Coolies also, nothing reluctant to diminish their burdens, will often widen the seams. Thus the route of a detachment may frequently be traced for several miles by the grain strewed on the road.

This waste may in some measure be prevented by doubling the bags. But there is nothing equal to the common bags made of mats, which the natives use for their pingoes,

or loads; they not only prevent waste, but keep the rice long dry.

The Coolies frequently plunder their loads; an evil which it is not easy to remedy, as by slipping into the woods unperceived, the Cooly can take out of his gunny bag, as much rice as he chooses, and, having concealed it in his cloth, returns to his comrades without having been missed.

The best method of preventing this waste appears to be this. Let the quantity of rice sufficient to load all his people be served out to each Congany, for which he is to be held. responsible; and let him be punished in case of any remarkable defalcation, making a proper allowance for inevitable wastage. He is the only man capable of checking their thefts. But it is necessary to keep a good look out on the Congany himself, as it is a common practice among the Conganies to sell the rice entrusted to their care.

The same precautions are necessary with regard to the bullock drivers. Here, too,

the bags used by the natives should be employed.

To persons not accustomed to the species of service which I have been describing, these observations may appear trivial. But they will think otherwise, when they consider that we are speaking of a country, in which, if the stock of provisions with which a detachment or an army sets out is either wasted or expended prematurely, it is for the most part impossible to procure a fresh supply. A Commanding Officer who should unwisely contemn these precautions, might find himself in the disgraceful and dangerous predicament. of discovering, when he expected to have provisions enough left for twenty days, that his stock, having been reduced by plunder or neglect, could not last beyond half the period.

By these circumstances alone, after having incurred considerable expence towards an expedition, the whole enterprise might be frustrated, and the lives of many valuable soldiers sacrificed:

Guides.

The necessity of experienced guides, so great in all military operations, is more particularly urgent in a country like the interior of Ceylon, intricate in its own nature, and to the knowledge of which we have no access by the usual means of maps.

The difficulty of procuring good guides is very great. There are, it is true, always men ready to undertake for hire the task of conducting our troops through the Candian country. But these are either Candian emigrants, who have settled in our possessions; or Lubbies.* These persons are, in general, perfectly acquainted with the common paths that lead from one village to another, and

* A sect of Mohammedans, supposed to be the descendants of Arab traders, who at a remote period mixed with the natives of India, and settled chiefly on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel. They conduct the chief interior trade of Ceylon, and much of that with the neighbouring coasts. They are considered by the other Mohammedans as a degenerate race, and their character in India bears a near resemblance to that of the Jews in Europe,