Hooghly, seldom or never approach the north-eastern shores of this island. If Java and the rest of the Eastern Archipelago boast of a far richer soil than is to be found in Ceylon, it is owing to the volcanic agency which makes itself known at frequent intervals by eruptions and earthquakes, the utmost verge of whose waves just touches the eastern coast of the island at Batticaloa and Trincomalee in scarcely perceptible undulations. On the west, again, Ceylon is equally beyond the region of the hurricanes which, extending from the Mozambique Channel, visit so often and so disastrously the coasts of Madagascar, Mauritius, and Zanzibar. The wind and rain-storms which usher in periodically the south-west and north-east monsoons sometimes inflict slight damage on the coffee and rice crops, but there is no comparison between the risks attaching to cultivation in Ceylon and those experienced by planters in Java and Mauritius. The same absence of risk holds good with reference to the formerly open roadstead of Colombo, and the island shipping trade, which has for years been nearly all centred there. Except for an occasional gale from the south-west, there was no special danger to be guarded against, and the risks to vessels lying at Colombo were much less than to those at Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay. But the delay in the transaction of shipping business, owing to the prevalence of a heavy surf and a stiff breeze during monsoon months, was more than sufficient to justify the very substantial breakwater and allied harbour works which, under the direction of Sir John Coode and his representative, Mr. Kyle, were some years ago successfully completed at Colombo. The capital of Ceylon is now the great central mail and commercial steamer port of the East. All the large steamers of the P. and O. Company, Orient, the British India, Star, Ducal, and most of the Messageries, Nord-Deutscher Lloyds, Austro-Hungarian Lloyds, Rubattino, the Clan, Glen, City, Ocean, Anchor, Holts, and other lines for Europe, India, China, the Straits, and Australia, call at Colombo regularly. One consequence of this, valuable to the merchant and planter, is the regular and cheap freight offered to the world's markets. Freights now do not average one-half of the rates prevalent some years ago. There is no tropical land-indeed there are few countries anywhere so thoroughly served by railways and roads, canals and navigable streams, as are the principal districts of Ceylon at the present day. The means of cheap transport between the interior and the coast (a few remote districts only excepted) are unequalled in the tropics. Indian tea planters confess that their Ceylon brethren have a great advantage over them in this respect, and still more so in the abundant supply of good, steady, cheap labour, trained by long experience to plantation work. A more forcing climate, too, than that of Ceylon does not exist under the sun; while now that the country is fully opened, the risks to health are infinitesimal compared with those of pioneers in new countries or of the tea planters in the Terai of India. Whatever may be said of the inimical effects of bad seasons on coffee-too much rain at blossoming time-there can be no doubt of the advantage of abundance of moisture and heat for tea, and it is in respect of the fitness of large tracts of undeveloped country for tea production that we would especially ask for the attention of British capitalists. Indian tea planters, who have come to see how tea is growing in Ceylon, confess that we are bound to rival Northern India. Tea, of as good quality as that from Assam, can be placed on board ship at Colombo for less per pound than Indian tea on board ship at Calcutta. But tea (although the principal) is only one among a list of valuable tropical products which Ceylon is well fitted to grow. As a body, Ceylon planters are the most intelligent, gentlemanly, and hospitable of any colonists in British dependencies. The rough work of pioneering in the early days before there were district roads, villages, supplies, doctors, or other comforts of civilisation, was chiefly done by hard-headed Scots: men bivouacked in the trackless jungle with the scantiest accommodation under tropical rains lasting for weeks together, with rivers swollen to flood-level and impassable, while food supplies often ran short, as none could be got across the wide torrents. All these and many other similar experiences are of the past in the settled planting districts of Ceylon, although there are outlying parts where pioneers can still rough it to their hearts' content. In the hill-country the pioneers about twenty years ago began to be succeeded by quite a different class of men. Younger sons with a capital, present or prospective, of a few thousand pounds, educated at public schools, and many of them University men, found an opening in life on Ceylon plantations far more congenial than that of the Australian bush or the backwoods of Canada. Of course some of these did not succeed as planters, as they probably would not have succeeded at anything in the colonies; but for well-inclined young men of the right stamp, not afraid of hard work, Ceylon still presents an opening as planters of tea, Liberian coffee, cacao, coconut palms, etc., provided the indispensable capital is available. The usual mode, and the safe one, is to send the young man fresh from home, through the introduction of some London or Colombo firm, to study his business as a planter, and to learn the colloquial Tamil spoken by the coolies, under an experienced planter for two or three years. In prosperous times such young assistants were " taught and boarded free in return for their help, and began to earn a salary after a year or so. Now, a fee for board and teaching (£50, or at most £100 for a year) may be needful. Nowhere in the whole wide world can young men learn so thoroughly the management of native free labourers, the mysteries of tea, coffee, cacao, cinchona, palm planting, etc., or be so well equipped as tropical agriculturists as in Ceylon. Ceylon planters and machinists have taught the rest of the tropics how to grow and prepare coffee properly; more is known in it about the mysteries of cinchona bark culture than anywhere else; the Ceylon tea planter is likely, ere long, to beat both India and China in the race for fine teas. Ceylon cocoa has already fetched the highest prices in the London market, just as she sends thither the finest cinnamon, cardamoms, coconut-oil, coir, etc. It may truly be said that the Press of Ceylon has greatly aided the planters in acquiring this pre-eminence. The Ceylon Observer has sent special correspondents to report on the tea regions of Assam and Darjeeling; on the cinchona gardens of the Nilgeries, and of Java; to West Africa to learn all about Liberian coffee, and to South and Central America to ascertain the progress of coffee; while its manuals on coffee, tea, cinchona, cacao, indiarubber, coconut and areca palms, cardamoms and cinnamon planting, on gold and gems, are known throughout the tropics. Of late years, since 1881, a monthly periodical, the Tropical Agriculturist, published at the same office, has been effectually bringing together all the information and experience available in reference to everything that concerns agriculture in tropical and sub-tropical regions. This is merely mentioned, en passant, in part explanation of the high position taken by the Ceylontrained planter, wherever he goes. After the depression of 1879 many Ceylon plantation managers and assistant superintendents had to seek their |