comparison in this form to much greater length. The greatest material change from the Ceylon of pre-British days to the Ceylon of the present time is most certainly in respect of means of internal communication. according to Sir Arthur Gordon (as quoted by Charles

If,

THE OLD LIGHTHOUSE (NOW SIGNALLER'S RESIDENCE) AND FLAGSTAFF, COLOMBO, WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE BATTERY.

Kingsley in "At Last "), the first and most potent means of extending civilisation is found in roads, the second in roads, the third again in roads, Sir Edward Barnes, when Governor of Ceylon (1824 to 1831), was a ruler who well understood his duty to the people, and he was followed at intervals by worthy successors.

When the English landed in Ceylon in 1796, there was not in the whole island a single practicable road, and troops in their toilsome marches between the fortresses on the coast dragged their cannon through deep sand along the shore. Before Sir Edward Parnes resigned his government in 1831, every town of importance was approached by a carriage-road. He had carried a firstclass macadamised road from Colombo to Kandy, throwing a "bridge of boats" (which is only now, in 1893, to be superseded by an iron bridge) over the Kelani river near Colombo, erecting other bridges and culverts too numerous to mention en route, and constructing, through the skill of General Fraser, a beautiful satin-wood bridge of a single span across the Mahaveliganga (the largest river in Ceylon) at Peradeniya, near Kandy. On this road (72 miles in length) on the 1st of February, 1832, the Colombo and Kandy mail-coach-the first mail-coach in Asia was started; and it continued to run successfully till the road was superseded by the railway in 1867.

There can be no doubt that the permanent conquest of the Kandyan country and people, which had baffled the Portuguese and Dutch for 300 years, was effected through Sir Edward Barnes's military roads. A Kandyan tradition, that their conquerors were to be a people who should make a road through a rocky hill, was shrewdly turned to account, and tunnels formed features on two of the cartroutes into the previously almost impenetrable hill-country. The spirit of the Highland chiefs of Ceylon, as of Scotland seventy years earlier, was effectually broken by means of military roads into their districts; and although the military garrison of Ceylon has gone down from 6,000 troops to 1,110, and, indeed, although for months together the island has been left with not more than a couple of hundred of artillerymen, no serious trouble has been given for about seventy-five years by the previously

warlike Kandyans or the Ceylonese generally. The socalled "rebellion" of 1848 is not deserving of mention, since it was so easily quieted that not a single British soldier received a scratch from the Sinhalese.

1831-1893 (now to be superseded by a permanent Iron Girder Bridge).

So much for the value of opening up the country from a military point of view. Governor Barnes, however, left an immense deal to do in bridging the rivers in the interior, and in extending district roads; but of this not

much was attempted until the arrival of his worthiest successor, Sir Henry Ward. This governor, with but limited means, did a great deal to open up remote districts, and to bridge the Mahaveliganga at Gampola and Katugastotte, as well as many other rivers which in the wet season were well-nigh impassable. He thus gave a great impetus to the planting enterprise, which may be said practically to have taken its rise in the year of the Queen's accession (1837). For the restoration and construction of irrigation works to benefit the rice cultivation of the Sinhalese and Tamils, Sir Henry Ward also did more than any of his predecessors. He, too, began the railway to Kandy, which was successfully completed in the time of his successors, Sir Charles MacCarthy and Sir Hercules Robinson.

In Sir Hercules Robinson Ceylon was fortunate enough to secure one of the most active and energetic governors that ever ruled a Crown colony. Sir Hercules Robinson -to whom this volume is dedicated-left his mark in every province and nearly every district of the country, in new roads, bridges, public buildings, and especially in the repair of irrigation tanks and channels and the provision of sluices. He extended the railway from Peradeniya to Gampola and Nawalapit ya, some seventeen miles; and he laid the foundation of the scheme through which, under his successor, the late Sir William Gregory, the Colombo Breakwater was begun. By this great undertaking, through the engineering skill of Sir John Coode and his local representative, Mr. John Kyle, there has been secured for the capital of Ceylon one of the safest, most convenient and commodious artificial harbours in the world.

To Sir William Gregory belongs the distinction of having spent more revenue on reproductive public works than any other governor of Ceylon. The roads in the

north and east of the island, which were chiefly gravel and sand tracks, were completed in a permanent form, and nearly every river was bridged. The North-Central Province, a purely Sinhalese rice-growing division of the

country, was called into existence, and large amounts were invested in tanks and roads; planting roads were extended; about fifty miles were added to the railway system, and preliminary arrangements made for a further