Loading your reading…

Narrative of the Operations of a Detachment in an Expedition to Candy, in the Island of Ceylon, in the Year 1804: With Some Observations on the Previous Campaign, and on the Nature of Candian Warfare, etc., etc., etc.Johnston, Arthur

History

Narrative of the Operations of a Detachment in an Expedition to Candy, in the Island of Ceylon, in the Year 1804: With Some Observations on the Previous Campaign, and on the Nature of Candian Warfare, etc., etc., etc.

Name: Narrative of the Operations of a Detachment in an Expedition to Candy, in the Island of Ceylon, in the Year 1804: With Some Observations on the Previous Campaign, and on the Nature of Candian Warfare, etc., etc., etc.
Author: Johnston, Arthur

Johnston, Arthur

Kandy (Sri Lanka) -- History; Sri Lanka -- History -- 1505-1948

The troops are also in a great measure placed in the power of the
interpreter. Through the medium of the questions which he is
instructed to put to the guides and spies, he is enabled to penetrate
into the views of the commanding officer, and to betray them to the
enemy; or, in stating their answers, he may deceive him, by altering,
or entirely withholding, information of the greatest importance. The
interpreter is ready enough to perceive, and to avail himself of the
advantages of his situation. He takes care to place his own particular
friends about the commanding officer's person. He holds a sort of
court at the place of private residence, to which the guides and
spies, or others who have business with the commanding officer,
resort, in order to prepare their statements. Thus the spies, who
ought never to know each other, get acquainted; and the advantages
which might be derived from comparing their different accounts, are,
from their opportunities of communication with each other, totally
lost. The interpreter, being the immediate executive agent, at once
gains an ascendancy over all the natives in the camp, which he not
unfrequently abuses; and however ill he may treat them, they never
presume to complain, it being a maxim with the natives of India never
to complain of a man in power. In this case, also, they are deterred
by the consideration, that the person complained against forms their
only channel of communication with the commanding officer.

When the natives know that the commanding officer understands their
language, and that he does not make a confidant of the interpreter, who
is generally the Modiliar,[5] they are ever ready to come forward with
their information.

          [5] In Ceylon the native chiefs of districts, and many
          subordinate officers, have been designated Modiliars; which
          title, at an early period of the Portuguese government of the
          island, seems to have been peculiar to the chiefs of the
          _military_ class; although now held by those who exercise not
          only the command of _Lascoryns_ (the ancient soldiers of the
          country), but various civil functions in the districts of
          Ceylon.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Narrative of the Operations of a Detachment in an Expedition to Candy, in the Island of Ceylon, in the Year 1804: With Some Observations on the Previous Campaign, and on the Nature of Candian Warfare, etc., etc., etc.

No reviews yet