Page:An English Garner Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (Volume 1 1877).pdf/345

 man makes a bad exchange: and they use it in reference to the Dutch succeeding the Portuguese in their island.

"Pick your teeth, to fill your belly." Spoken of stingy niggardly people.

"To eat before you go forth, is handsome and convenient." Which they therefore ever do.

"As the saying is, If I come to beg buttermilk, why should I hide my pan." Which is ordinarily spoken to introduce the business that one man comes to speak to another about.

"A beggar and a trader cannot be lost." Because they are never out of their way.

"To lend to another, makes him become an enemy." For he will hate you, if you ask him for it again.

"Go not with a slave in one boat." It signifies to have no dealing nor correspondence with any one's slave: for if any damage should happen, it would fall upon your head: and, by their law, you must make it good.

"First look into the hand, afterwards open the mouth." Spoken of a judge; who first must have a bribe, before he will pronounce on their side.

"Take a ploughman from the plough, and wash off his dirt: and he is fit to rule a kingdom." Spoken of the people of Conde Uda, where there are such eminent persons of the "Hondrew" rank: and because of the civility, understanding, and gravity of the poorest men among them.

"Nobody can reproach the King and the beggar." Because the former is above the slander of the people, and nothing can be said bad enough of the latter.

"Like Noya and Polonga." Denoting irreconcilable enemies.

If the Polonga and the Noya meet together, they cease not fighting till one hath killed the other.

The reason and original of this fatal enmity is this; according to a fable among the Cingalese.

These two chanced to meet in a dry season, when water was scarce. The Polonga being almost famished for thirst; asked the Noya, where he might go to find a little water. The Noya, a little before, had met with a bowl of water in which a child lay playing: as it is usual among this people, to wash their children in a bowl of water, and there leave