CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 1
I. MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE TROPICS 12
II. COLOMBO 25
III. COLOMBO 52
IV. THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 73
V. THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 89
VI. TO THE HILLS 108
VII. NUWARA ELIYA 132
VIII. ELEPHANTS 154
IX. KANDY 172
X. THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 196
XI. FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 238
XII. ANURADHAPURA 266
XIII. ANURADHAPURA AND MIHINTALE 295
XIV. RATNAPURA—GEMS 310
XV. BADULLA AND HAPUTALE 325
XVI. SOME PAGES FROM A BROTHER’S DIARY 348
XVII. BATTICALOA 362
XVIII. POLLANARUA 383
XIX. TRINCOMALEE—SAAMI ROCK 406
XX. TRINCOMALEE TO GALLE 422
XXI. SOUTHERN COAST 442
XXII. RETURN TO COLOMBO 466
XXIII. NATIVE POLICE 477
XXIV. IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 497
XXV. ASCENT OF ADAM’S PEAK 523
XXVI. THE TUG OF WAR—THE BATTLE OF DIVERSE CREEDS IN CEYLON 548
XXVII. CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 579
INDEX 609
ILLUSTRATIONS
SHRINE ON THE SUMMIT OF ADAM’S PEAK, AND THE SHADOW OF Frontispiece THE PEAK
MAP OF CEYLON to face 1 page
BLOSSOM OF THE COCOA PALM ” 61
OUR HOUSE-BOAT ON THE LUNA-OYA ” 102
VALLEY OF THE MAHA-VELLI GANGA ” 128 Showing the Railway and Satinwood Bridges at Peradeniya, Allegalla Peak, terraced rice-fields; foreground, coffee and a Talipot palm
THE PLAINS OF NUWARA ELIYA ” 134
KANDY, LOOKING TO THE MATELE HILLS ” 173 Shows the Temple of the Tooth, Buddhist Library, Government House, &c.
AVENUE OF INDIA-RUBBER TREES, PERADENIYA ” 187
GIGANTIC BAMBOOS, PERADENIYA ” 190
THE MAHA-VELLI GANGA, FROM THE SATINWOOD BRIDGE (BAMBOO ” 216 FOLIAGE)
THE RUANWELI DAGOBA, ANURADHAPURA, B.C. 300 ” 268 To contain right collar-bone of Buddha. To the right is the Government Agent’s house
THE THUPARAMA DAGOBA, ANURADHAPURA, B.C. 300 ” 271 To the left lies the Delada Maligawa, where the sacred Tooth rested on its arrival from India, A.D. 400
PILGRIM’S CAMP AND THE THREE STONE BULLS ” 287 Near the ruins of the Brazen Temple
THE SACRED BO-TREE ” 288 Rising through the upper terrace
THE LOWER FLIGHT OF THE 1,840 ROCK STEPS ” 305
FIVE-HEADED NAGA AT THE BATHING-PLACE, MIHINTALE ” 306
THE WATA-DÁGÉ, OR ROUND TREASURE-HOUSE, POLLANARUA ” 390 Looking to the Sat-mahal-prasada, or seven-storied building
THE JETAWANARAMA AND THE KIRI VIHARA AT POLLANARUA ” 393
THE GAL VIHARA: ROCK TEMPLE AT POLLANARUA ” 395 Sitting Buddha is 15 feet above pedestal; erect, 23 feet; recumbent, 46 feet
THE SAAMI ROCK AT TRINCOMALEE—WORSHIP AT SUNSET ” 407
THE LILY SHORE, NEAR TRINCOMALEE ” 421
THE NILWALLA RIVER AT MATARA ” 445
COCOA PALMS: SHORE OF COLOMBO LAKE ” 476
COFFEE FIELDS ON THE SLOPES OF ALLEGALLA PEAK ” 500 On the summit there is a partly natural indentation which duplicates the Footprint
ADAM’S PEAK FROM MASKELIYA ” 533
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THE CASTLE JERMYN 77
THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 207
BUDDHA GUARDED BY THE COBRA, ROCK TEMPLE, ELLA PASS 293
A FOREST SANCTUARY 399 Offerings of red pottery to the God of the Tank at Minery
TALIPOT PALM IN BLOSSOM On cover
TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON
INTRODUCTORY
There are perhaps few families in the Mother Country to whom the farther corners of Great Britain have (from the colonising or sporting instincts of its various members) become more really familiar to the imagination of the younger branches than that to which I was welcomed, as its twelfth addition.
Thus about the time of my first introduction to the immortal Robinson Crusoe, my eldest brother Penrose returned from Canada, soon to be followed by my second brother Roualeyn, who had made his mark as the pioneer of all the Lion-hunters who since then have ravaged the hunting-grounds of Southern Africa.
Then two more of the home brood started to carve their fortunes in far countries. Almost simultaneously my fourth and fifth brothers, John and William, sailed for Ceylon and Bombay, where the latter tamed wild men[1] and slew wild beasts, while the former settled down to sober cocoa-nut planting in the neighbourhood of Batticaloa; and then, through weary years of waiting for the growth of trees which never in his lifetime repaid his outlay, he obtained work in the forests on the east coast, and likewise distinguished himself as a cunning and mighty hunter, beloved by the wild tribes.
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Footnote 1:
‘Wild Men and Wild Beasts.’ By Colonel Gordon Cumming. Published by David Douglas, Edinburgh.
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During a term of twenty years, scarcely a month passed without bringing us letters from these two faithful brothers; so that life in the forests of Ceylon and of Bombay became as familiar to our thoughts as grouse-shooting or salmon-fishing in Morayshire. Some of the details in these sporting diaries might well excite the envy of many a less successful Nimrod. Thus one mail brought me a letter from India, telling of thirty tigers as the chief item of a two months’ bag; while my Ceylon letter of the same date told of the rejoicing of the villagers over the slaughter, by their white friend, of twenty-five leopards!—a highly satisfactory riddance of dangerous foes.
A journey to India or Ceylon in those days was a very different thing from the simple pleasure-trip which, thanks to swift steamers and large competition, it has now become. Though a great advance had been made since the first quarter of the present century, when the colonists in Colombo were only gladdened twice a year by the arrival of a sailing-vessel from England, bringing supplies of European clothing and stores, nevertheless, so late as 1840, three months occasionally elapsed without a call from any European sailing-ship, in what was then the open roadstead of Colombo; so we may well understand that the approach of the smallest steamer would suffice to throw the population into a fever of excitement.
In those days the mails from London came viâ Bombay, whence runners carried them across India and Ceylon, and great was the satisfaction when letters were delivered in Colombo only forty days after their despatch from Britain! After a while Ceylon started a steamer to carry the mails to and from Bombay, thus reducing the transit to London to thirty days. A few years later, steamers bound for Calcutta or Australia brought mails and passengers direct in twenty days—a period which has been gradually lessened till now some swift steamers deliver their mail-bags in Colombo in fifteen days, and as it occasionally happens that a return steamer is ready to start immediately, it is now possible to receive answers to letters within five weeks.[2]
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Footnote 2:
Still more rapid and wonderful has been the development of our Australian cities with their crowded harbours. But for a strange illustration of the influence of steam-power at our very doors, we may note Sir Walter Scott’s testimony, that in his day (he was my father’s friend) one small mail-cart carried the posts between London and Edinburgh, and he mentions having seen it arrive with only one letter addressed to the manager of the British Linen Banking Company.
Moreover, is it not strange to mark the development as it affects two of what we deem our daily necessaries, potatoes and tea, and remember that the former had never even been heard of till Sir Walter Raleigh imported the first, and that in 1660 Mr. Pepys described tea as ‘the new Chinese drink’! And now Britain’s annual consumption of tea is about 180,000,000 lb., of which about half comes from China and Java, and the other half from India and Ceylon.