184 ESSAYS IN NATIONAL IDEALISM.

at * spinning bees' in Ceylon before the village weaver's
market was " successfully contested " by the products of
the wage-slaves of English factory towns. In all these
songs, music and words are inseparable. The greater part
of Eastern literature, popular or otherwise, is written in
verse, and verse implies song. Men and women may be
illiterate; but when they can recite classical poetry for
hours—in language differing at least as much, and in the
same way from that in every-day use, as does the lan-
guage of the Psalms or of Chaucer from the daily speech
of an Englishman—then we can hardly deny them * edu-
cation. '

Song and agriculture are intimately associated ; as you
walk along some narrow village track, you may come
suddenly upon a hillside clearing where twenty or thirty
men are working, and singing at their work, led by an old
man with a quavering voice ; or a row of stooping women
weeding, and singing as they progress steadily across the
field in the hot sun, at work in the water, transplanting
rice. Such scenes did not escape the notice of Sinhalese
poets; a mediaeval version of the Maltha Deva Jataka
relates that as a certain prince went on his way, he saw
u hundreds of girls tending the ear-laden fields, singing
sweet songs without fault, wherein his own life was praised.7>
One song relates the exploits of a national hero named
{raja Bahu. In a well-known reaping song, the tala palm
is praised :

In Rayigam Korale renowned there grew a famous tala palm,

Fairer than speech can tell.
With various beauty crowned,

From village unto village known ;
Fair of hue this palm-flower bloomed,

Like lotus petals blowing on the tree.

The religious character of many of the agricultural