China, India, etc., who land for a day or more, give Colombo and sometimes Kandy a very busy appearance.

Colombo, the capital, a city of close on 130,000 inhabitants, with its fine artificial harbour (projected by Sir Hercules Robinson), has much to interest the visitor in its beautiful drives over the smoothest of roads through the "Cinnamon Gardens "; its lake, and the Kelani river, with Sir Edward Barnes's bridge of boats; its public museum, erected by Sir William Gregory, and containing objects of interest from all parts of the island; the old Dutch church, containing the tombs and monuments of Dutch governors; the bungalows and gardens of the Europeans; still more unique are the crowded native parts of the town, teeming with every variety of oriental race and costume-the effeminate light brown Sinhalese, the men as well as women wearing their hair tied behind in knots (the former patronising combs, the latter elaborate hairpins), the darker and more manly Tamils, Hindus of every caste and dress, Moormen or Arab descendants, Afghan traders, Malay policemen, a few Parsees and Chinese, Kaffir mixed descendants, besides the Eura sians of Dutch, or Portuguese, or English and native descent.

*

Colombo has three first-class, besides minor hotels, and the stranger is soon surrounded by native pedlars, especially jewellers with their supply of gems, from rare cat's eyes, rubies, sapphires, and pearls, to first-class Birmingham imitations.

The scene to the new-comer is bewilderingly interesting;

*Kaffirs first arrived in Ceylon as a company of soldiers sent from Goa to help the Portuguese against the Sinhalese in 1636-40. The first British Governor (the Hon. F. North) actually purchased a body of Kaffir soldiers from the Portuguese Government at Goa, besides sending an officer to try and "crib" Malays from the eastward (Straits and Java)!

visions of the "Arabian Nights" are conjured up, for, as Miss Jewsbury sang after her visit some forty years ago:

"Ceylon Ceylon! 'tis nought to me

How thou wert known or named of old

As Ophir, or Taprobanè,

By Hebrew king, or Grecian bold:

"To me thy spicy-wooded vales,

Thy dusky sons, and jewels bright,
But image forth the far-famed tales-
But seem a new Arabian night.

"And when engirdled figures crave

Heed to thy bosom's glittering store

I see Aladdin in his cave;

I follow Sinbad on the shore."

Although the mean temperature of Colombo is nearly as high as that of any station in the world as yet recorded, yet the climate is one of the healthiest and safest for Europeans, because of the slight range between night and day, and between the so-called "seasons," of which, however, nothing is known there, it being one perpetual summer varied only by the heavy rains of the monsoon months, May, June, October, and November. But in the wettest months it rarely happens that it rains continuously even for two whole days and nights; as a rule, it clears up for some hours each day.

Waterworks have been constructed, at a heavy cost, to convey water from mountain streams, distant thirty miles, to serve Colombo, some parts of which are badly off for a good supply. When the works and distribution over the city are completed-an additional pipe to increase the supply is now required-and when the drainage is thus improved, Colombo will more than ever be entitled to its reputation of being one of the healthiest (as well as most beautiful) cities in the tropics, or indeed in the world. A convenient system of tramways is also being projected,

while at present, besides the railway through one side of the town, there are numerous conveyances of different descriptions for hire at very moderate rates, and many "jinirickshaws" (man-power carriages), peculiar to Japan and the Far East.*

There are several places of interest in the neighbourhood of Colombo that are well worth a visit.

A seaside railway line runs for over fifty miles as far as Ambalangoda, shortly (January 1894) to be extended some. twenty miles to Galle. This passes through several interesting stations and towns: Mount Lavinia, with its commanding hotel, originally erected as a Governor's residence; Morotto, the scene of a flourishing church in connection with the Wesleyan Mission; Panadura, with its backwater and fishing; Kalatura, the Richmond of Ceylon; Bentota, the old half-way station, famous for its oysters and river; Ambalangoda, for its sea-bathing; and Galle, for its picturesque harbour and surroundings. The railway runs nearly all the way under an avenue of coconut palms, diversified here and there by yak, bread-fruit, and other fruit trees, and close to the sea shore with the waves breaking over coral reefs and a cool breeze generally blowing. The enjoyment of the scene to a lover of natural beauty is indescribable: the cool shade of the palm groves, the fresh verdure of the grass, the bright tints of the flowering trees, with occasional glimpses through openings in the dense wood of the mountains of the interior, the purple zone of hills above which the sacred mountain of Adam's Peak is sometimes seen, all

"Jinirickshaws," which have become very popular in Ceylon towns, in Colombo, Kandy, and Nuwara Eliya especially, were freely introduced in 1884, on the suggestion of the author, after a visit to the Straits, China, and Japan, where he noted the "'rickshaws" and wrote of their peculiar fitness for Colombo roads. Mr. Whittall, an ex-Hong Kong resident, introduced the first "'rickshaw some time before, but little notice was taken of it till after the letters appeared.

combine to form a landscape which in novelty and beauty

Returning to Colombo, we may remark on the great variety of vegetation presented to the visitor apart from the palms (coconut, areca, kitul, dwarf, etc.), the shrubs, such as cinnamon, the crotons, hibuscus and cabbage trees,

FRONT VEIW OF THE RAILWAY STATION, COLOMBO.

the aloes and other plants, or the many fruit trees of the gardens. The winding, ubiquitous lake, too, adds much to the beauty and health of the city.

The King of Kandy sometimes ordered criminals to be flung from the top of this rocky mountain, as a mode of capital punishment.

From a Photograph by Mr. A. Clark, Forest Department, Ceylon.

As Miss Martineau wrote, fifty years ago, in her political romance, "Cinnamon and Pearls "- "The Blue Lake of Colombo, whether gleaming in the sunrise or darkening