PREFACE

What can be the reason that writers on Ceylon seem impelled to describe their book as a term of years?—

‘Fifty Years in Ceylon.’ An Autobiography by Major Thomas Skinner.

‘Eleven Years in Ceylon.’ By Major Forbes, 78th Highlanders.

‘Eight Years in Ceylon.’ By Sir Samuel Baker.

‘Seven Years in Ceylon.’ By Mary and Margaret Leitch,—

and finally, ‘Two Happy Years in Ceylon,’ by C. F. Gordon Cumming, who had so named her notes of pleasant days in the fair Isle, before realising that any of her predecessors had thus described their longer terms of residence therein?

I can only ascribe it to the fact, so evident in each of these works, that the several writers have retained such sweet memories of

‘Moonlit seas, Of dreamy sunsets, and of balmy air, Of glowing landscapes and of shadowy bowers Where stately palms low murmur in the breeze,’—

that they have loved to enumerate the months and years that glided by amid such pleasant influences.

Although, by comparison with that of others, my own term in the Earthly Paradise was short, I can safely say that, as it was all play and no work, I had abundant leisure to note many matters of interest seen under exceptionally favourable circumstances.

I trust, therefore, that these pages may prove of some value to the ever-increasing army of wanderers in search of winter-quarters.

CONTENTS

PREFACE✦

PREFACE