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Nor is the reduction on time alone. The cost of travel has also been minimised, and the colonists of the present day need no longer face the prospect of such prolonged exile as was deemed a matter of course forty years ago, when the expense of a ‘run home’ was prohibitive.

Thus, in the case of these two brothers, though often longing for a sight of home and home faces, fifteen years elapsed ere they were able to make arrangements for a meeting in the old country. The younger happily arrived in safety; but alas! the vessel which should have brought the elder from Ceylon, brought tidings of a HOME-going far different from that which he had planned. He had died very suddenly, almost on the eve of the date when he had purposed embarking, and was laid to rest beside the blue sea-lake at Batticaloa.

Barely two years later I made my first voyage to the East, touching Ceylon at Point de Galle en route to Calcutta. That one glimpse of the lovely isle impressed itself on my memory as such a dream of delight, that when, a few years later, one of my earliest friends was consecrated Bishop of Colombo,[3] I very gladly accepted his invitation to return to Ceylon on a leisurely visit, finding headquarters under his hospitable roof, and thence exploring such parts of the isle as had special interest for me.

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Footnote 3:

The Right Rev. Hugh W. Jermyn, now Bishop of Brechin and Primus of Scotland.

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These interests gradually widened, owing to the unbounded kindness of numerous friends, and friends’ friends; and so it came to pass that so many delightful expeditions were organised, and so many pleasant homes claimed visits, that wellnigh two years slipped away ere I finally bade adieu to the green Isle of Palms, to which, I think, notwithstanding the claims of many a lovely South Sea isle, we must concede the right it claims—to have been, and still to continue, the true Earthly Paradise.

On my return to Scotland, after widely extended travels, a selection of upwards of three hundred of my water-colour paintings in various parts of ‘Greater Britain’ were exhibited in their respective courts in the Indian and Colonial Exhibition at South Kensington, and at subsequent Colonial Exhibitions in Liverpool and Glasgow. Of these, about sixty of scenery in Ceylon were selected from several hundreds, which, on the principle of ‘never a day without at least one careful-coloured sketch,’ had accumulated as I wandered in every direction—north, south, east, and west—basking on the yellow sands of most fascinating palm-fringed sea-coast, or gliding over calm rivers—gipsying among ruins of mighty pre-Christian cities in the depths of lonely forests, or awaiting the sunrise on lofty mountain-summits—studies of exquisite foliage or of strange Buddhist and Tamil shrines, and all enlivened to memory by the recollection of picturesque groups of brown men, women, and children of divers race and very varied hue, some scantily draped, others gorgeously apparelled, but all alike harmonious in colour.

Friendly critics, who say that these sketches have helped them to realise something of the true character and beauty of Ceylonese scenery, have asked me to supplement the brush with the pen, and tell the readers who have so kindly received my notes of travel in other lands something of my own impressions of Ceylon. So now I sit surrounded with diaries and letters, travel-notes and sketch-books innumerable, and portfolios in which each page recalls some day of deep interest and many of delight; while the signatures in the corner of each sketch vividly recall the many friends whose kindness did so much to gladden all days, and to smooth all difficulties from the path of a happy guest.

My chief difficulty lies in selecting from such a mass of material only so much as can be compressed within reasonable limits. Another difficulty lies in a far too personal knowledge of certain changes which, to those intimately acquainted with Ceylon, mark a complete revolution in its social economy, and which gave birth to a very sad parody of certain well-known lines descriptive of an isle of which for some years it was too true that—

‘every prospect pleases, But no man makes a pile!’

To the general reader, however, and to the traveller likely to follow in my footsteps, the only visible feature of a change which to the initiated tells of the total ruin of very many industrious and energetic European planters, and the commencement of an altogether new era, bringing wealth to a new generation, lies in the fact that the vast mountain districts, which ten years ago presented one unbroken expanse of coffee-fields, are now chiefly covered with tea-plantations, varied with cinchona, cacao, Indian-rubber trees, and other products, more or less experimental, while only in certain districts is coffee successfully proving its claim to renewed public confidence. There is apparently, however, no doubt that Ceylon will henceforth be emphatically distinguished in the manner so happily described by the present Governor, Sir Arthur Havelock, as ‘the land for excellent tea.’ That its character in this respect is already well established is evident from the fact, that whereas in 1873 only 23 lb. of tea were exported from Ceylon, the export in 1890 was about 40,000,000 lb.; and there seems every reason to believe that in the current year 1891 it will be fully 63,000,000; and assuredly, long ere the end of the century, it will have risen to 100,000,000![4]

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Footnote 4:

I cannot resist quoting the following paragraph from the ‘Pall Mall Budget’ for March 13, 1891:—

‘AN ENORMOUS PRICE FOR CEYLON TEA.

‘Unusual excitement prevailed on Tuesday in Mincing Lane, on the offering by Messrs. Gow, Wilson, and Stanton, tea-brokers, in public auction, of a small lot of Ceylon tea from the Gartmore estate in Maskeliya (Mr. T. C. Anderson). This tea possesses extraordinary quality in liquor, and is composed almost entirely of small “golden tips,” which are the extreme ends of the small succulent shoots of the plant, and the preparation of such tea is, of course, most costly. Competition was of a very keen description. The bidding, which was pretty general to start with, commenced with an offer of 1_l._ 1_s._ per lb.; as the price advanced to 8_l._ many buyers dropped out, and at this price about five wholesale dealers were willing to purchase. Offers were then made up to about 9_l._ 9_s._ by three of the leading houses, the tea being ultimately knocked down to the “Mazawattee Ceylon Tea Company” at the most extraordinary and unprecedented price of 10_l._ 12_s._ 6_d._ per lb.’

Naturally, when this news reached Ceylon the excitement knew no bounds. This, however, was intensified in the following month, when another sale of ‘golden tips,’ prepared on the Haviland estate (Mr. W. A. M. Denison), sold in Mincing Lane for 17_l._ per lb. Even this surprising price was, however, very soon surpassed, for the next consignment of ‘golden tips’ from Gartmore fetched 25_l._ 10_s._ per lb. This was quickly followed by the sale of a small box from the Kellie estate at 30_l._ per lb.; while, on August 25, another parcel was actually sold at 35_l._ per lb.

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Nor is there any fear of a glut in the market, since America and Russia have proved appreciative customers. The chief danger lies in the probability that Brazil and Madras will each be stimulated to enter into the competition. Patriotic planters are adjured to refrain from selling tea-seed to Brazil; but as regards Madras, it not only possesses a vast area of suitable land, but, moreover, commands all the labour, Ceylon being entirely dependent on that Presidency for her coolies. So that rivalry is to be feared from that quarter.

Simultaneously with the amazingly rapid development of this new product, 1891 has to record the most successful Pearl-fishery of the present century, the Government share of the total amount realised being upwards of 96,370_l._, of which about 10,000_l._ covers all expenses, so that the revenue profits to an extent far exceeding the most golden expectations. In 1888 these fisheries realized 80,424_l._ less 8,000_l._ of expenses. Such sums had only been realized four times in the present century: therefore, that two such fisheries should follow in such rapid succession, is an unspeakable blessing to Ceylon. From 1882 to 1886 the return from these fisheries had been almost nil; but in the years 1887, 1889, and 1890, a total was realised of 120,720_l._, less 1,489_l._ of expenses. Naturally the colonists look for immediate railway extension in divers directions, and for other boons which, ten years ago, seemed altogether visionary.

A notable advance in the last decade has been that of the steadily increasing prosperity of a multitude of native cultivators, owing to the restoration of several of the cyclopean tanks and other irrigation works, created by the autocratic rulers of olden days, but which (partly since British rule rejected the ancient custom of ‘Rajah-kariya’—i.e. compulsory work for the king—by which the rulers of the Isle exacted from every man so many days’ work annually for the general weal) had fallen into total decay, so that a scanty and unhealthy population could barely find subsistence in the arid jungle or malarious swamps which replaced the verdant rice-fields of olden days.