Hooray!
Long Live The Burghers.
A MUST read.
Our Good Friends, The Burghers
We Cannot Think Of Ceylon Without Them
I have a great predilection towards Burghers.
Not only because I have many bosom cronies in that community, but because I have spent some of the happiest years of my boyhood in their homes.
The finest lady that I ever knew was a Burgher.
The
most select gentleman of my acquaintance is a Burgher; and if some
unfortunate Muslim girl fails to discover me, I could still discover
both intelligence and beauty in a Burgher girl.
This is merely a personal outburst, because a fair face seldom fails to floor me.
But the Burghers are not only
fair of face, along with the attractive complexion they have, in
addition, their broad sense of fair play and fair dealing make them the
easiest to get on with in the world.
We have been brothers and sisters in blood for we have tasted more things than salt together.
They Give Zest.
They are a Western graft upon an Eastern tree, but so well have they acclimatized and endearedthemselves to the native soil that we cannot think of a Ceylon without Burghers.
If there were no Burgher girls to scatter radiance on the way:
Wellawatte would be a dull strip of sand;
Bambalapitiya a barren wilderness of wind;
Colpetty and Dehiwala gloomy haunts of melancholy.
With their good looks and musical voices they give a definite zest to social life, dancing with hips of rhythm and crooning melodies that are filled with moonlit dreams.
The sparkle of life is in their eyes and the tremor of love is on their lips.
They have captured all the romance in the world and shut it all to themselves, that nomatchmakers
can enter into their lives with deceitful talk of daughters and of
dowries; and so they believe in marrying for love and believe also in
all the sacrifices involved in the one greatadventure of love.
Eyes so frank.
They wear their hearts on their sleeves and in the frank lustre of their eyes one can read their very souls.
Faithful as friends and forgiving as enemies, they are always too good-natured to be obstinately malicious and too easy-going to bear any rancour.
They
are the descendants of all those Portuguese who came along with Lorenzo
d’Almeida or of the Dutch who arrived with Joris Van Spilbergen.
The
former held the land for 134 years and the Hollanders for over 156, and
although their governments have disappeared, the two nations remain
with us, as Burghers.
Intellects
Theirs have been some of the greatest intellects of the land.
The
past has given us Dornhorst and Lorenz; the present has Blaze and
Schneider. Maartensz and Wille are men of the age we live in; and in the
field of sport as in the realm of music, Kelaart, Foenander, Arndt and
Zilwa are names of high repute, while the Van Langenbergs are men of
wide renown.
Remains
also with them the blessed light of Christianity that they brought into
the island; the Roman-Dutch Law; the forts that they built and the
canals they constructed.
Those forts may crumble and the canals run dry but Portuguese or Dutch we have always in our midst our tried friends the Burghers.
“The government officers”, explains the well-known Dutch Burgher historian of Ceylon, “were known as Company’s Servants and the non-officials as Burghers or Viyburgers (free Burghers)”.
From these Burghers were appointed officers for the Burgery, an armed force composed of Tupasses, (people of mixed Portuguese descent).
When
the rule of the Company ceased in 1796 there could be no Company’s
Servants any longer and all the Dutch people in Ceylon became Burghers.
They are the sponsors of Western art and fashion in our midst.
They are a vivacious occidental group in a sedate Eastern land.
Cocktails and Fox Trots will not join the Dodo as long as there are Burghers in the country.
Besides, is not music the greatest passion of their lives and beauty their common heritage?
Great Race, this, the Burghers.
Happy Bonds
Politics do not flutter
them; they like the men of the land and the men of the land are fond of
them and these happy bonds of love are often drawn closer together with
a ring of beaten gold and a vow before the altar.
They are certainly not an effeminate people:
The heroic spirit of Constantine de Sa and the martial spirit of Azevedo still linger in the hearts of their descendants,
So, in every branch and walk of life have proved themselves to be an honour to their country and community.
Whether
in the learned professions or in the government service or lower down
in the humbler crafts which the poorer ones follow for the sake of
their living, they have singularly distinguished themselves by their
honesty and integrity, just as wherever they go they must have, in their
own characteristic manner and according to their lot in life, their feasts and musicalfestivals.
They fill a very big place in the social life of the country and if we Muslims have not quarrelled with them and have found them to be the pleasantest of
friends, it is mainly because of their savoir faire and good breeding
and of the winning ways of their men as of the smiling charm of their ladies.
