Chapter I: My First Glimpse of the Tropics

‘Where Champac odours float,
Like sweet thoughts in a dream.’

Aden _versus_ Ceylon—Fragrant breezes—Canoes—Singhalese, Tamils, and
Moormen—Singhalese love of gambling—Point de Galle—‘Hothouse
flowers’ at home—Discordant voices—Fire-beetles—Phosphorescence—
Corals—Cocoa-palms—View of Galle—Sail for Calcutta.

To begin with, let me recall my very first impressions of this paradise, when, _en route_ to the Himalayas, we touched at Point de Galle, and there obtained our first glimpse of the tropics—a delight never to be excelled in any subsequent wanderings.

In those days there was no Suez Canal; so travellers were landed at Alexandria, and crossed Egypt to Suez, whence another steamer carried them down the Red Sea to Aden, and thence eastward.

It would be difficult to imagine contrast more complete, as opposite types of Creation, than the scenes thus successively revealed, like dissolving views in the panorama of travel—Aden and Ceylon—the former like a vision of some ruined world, the latter the very ideal of Eden: there a stifling atmosphere and scorching rocks, seemingly without one blade of grass whereon to rest the wearied eye; here a balmy sleepy air, laden with the fragrance of our rarest hothouse flowers, clustering in densest luxuriance amid tangled mazes of infinitely varied verdure. Creamy blossoms with large glossy leaves; crimson and gold gleaming like gems, from their setting of delicate green shadow; an endless variety of tropical flowers growing in wild confusion over hill and plain; delicate creepers festooning the larger shrubs, and linking together the tall graceful palms with a perfect network of tendrils and blossoms, or finding their home in every crevice of the rocks, and veiling them with fairy drapery.

Every shrub is covered with young fresh leaves of many tints; for here we have perpetual spring as well as continual autumn, and though the ground is always strewn with withered leaves, new life is for ever bursting forth, in hues which we are wont to call autumnal, and which in Britain speak to us only of approaching winter and death. Some trees there are whose sombre foliage is always tipped with young leaves of vivid crimson; others which seem to change their leaves periodically, and which one week burst forth in brilliant scarlet, then gradually deepen to crimson, changing to olive; finally the whole tree becomes green.

Long before we sighted the beautiful Isle, the breath of these tropical forests ‘met us out on the seas’; and as so many people, who do not happen when nearing the coast to have been favoured with a land-wind, laugh at the idea of ‘spice-laden breezes,’ I may as well state that again and again in southern seas, even when out of sight of land (notably when passing Cape Comorin), I have for several hours been rejoiced by a balmy breeze off shore, like the atmosphere of a greenhouse, recalling the delicate scent of primulas. It has been as unmistakable as is the fragrance of birch-woods in the Highlands after summer rain, or that of resinous fir-needles in the noonday sun.

As we neared the Isle, some of our party confessed themselves disappointed, even though we were favoured with a clear view of Adam’s Peak, rising in solitary beauty above the blue mountain-ranges, right in the heart of the Isle. But in truth these lie so far inland that the unaccustomed eye fails to recognise their height; and the coast, with its endless expanse of cocoa-palm topes fringing the coral strand, is certainly somewhat monotonous as seen from the sea.

Not till we were gliding into the calm harbour did we realise the fascination of the scene, when, from those white sands overshadowed by palms, we espied curious objects coming towards us over the blue rippling water. In the distance they looked like great sea-spiders with very long legs; but as they approached and turned sideways, we saw that they were long narrow canoes, most curiously constructed, each being simply the hollow trunk of a tree, with raised bulwarks stitched on with twisted cocoa-nut fibre. They ride high on the water, and the long oars produce the spider-like effect aforesaid.

Some of the larger canoes are from forty to sixty feet in length, and carry many human beings; but the width is so small that there is never room for two persons to sit abreast. Of course such hollowed trees would inevitably roll over were they not balanced by a long heavy log, which, like the canoe itself, is pointed at both ends, and floats alongside at a distance of about ten feet, being attached to the boat by two strong bamboos tied on at right angles, thus staying the craft fore and aft.

This outrigger, as it is called, is applied on one side only, and must always be kept to windward, hence tacking is impossible; so the canoe is constructed to go either backward or forward. The quaint brown sail forms a triangle between two bamboos, which meet in a point at bow or stern alternately; and when this is hoisted, the canoe literally flies before the breeze—the strength of which is described as a ‘one-man breeze’ or a ‘two- or three-man breeze,’ according to how many human beings must help to steady the boat by adding their weight to that of the floating log, by either standing on it or on the connecting bamboos. Very picturesque are these lithe, rich brown figures, ever and anon half swamped by the waves, as they stand with rope in hand, ready at a moment’s notice to haul down the sail. Most of the fishermen wear wide-brimmed straw hats, and scanty drapery consisting of a couple of gay pocket-handkerchiefs—one of which, knotted round the shoulders, perhaps displays a portrait of the Pope or of the Madonna, which, together with the small crucifix hanging from the neck, shows them to be members of the Church of Rome.

Even the tiniest canoes are balanced by the floating outrigger, so that very small children paddle themselves about the harbour in perfect safety; and a number of most fascinating little traders came round us offering fruit and coral for sale. Ere our vessel reached her moorings she was boarded by a crowd of merchants—we should call them pedlars— offering us curious treasures; but to us the sellers were far more interesting than their wares—especially the gentle, comely Singhalese, who in every respect contrast with the last brown race we had seen (namely, the hideous Somalis of Aden, with their fuzzy lime-washed yellow hair), just as strikingly as do the lands which gave them birth.

We very quickly learnt to distinguish three totally distinct elements in the crowd of brown men, each representing totally different branches of the human family. The clear, sienna-coloured Singhalese, who number about sixty per cent. of the total population, are of pure Aryan race, and are the descendants of the conquerors who adopted ‘Singha,’ a lion, as their emblem, and who in far back ages swept down from Northern India. The dark-brown Tamils hail from the Malabar coast in Southern India, and are of the Dravidian family. Some are descended from early conquerors, others are recruited year by year from the mainland to do the hard work of the Isle, and together these number about thirty-three per cent. of the total population.

On the present occasion the leaders of the invasion were mostly Moormen, who, though few in proportion to the races aforesaid (numbering only six per cent. of the whole), hold a very strong position, being the most energetic traders of the Isle. They claim to be descended from Arabian merchants who settled in Ceylon two thousand years ago, and so represent a third great branch of the human tree—namely, the Semitic. In complexion they are pale copper-colour, and the majority have black beards. Their shaven heads are crowned with high straw hats made without a brim, and these are often covered with a yellow turban. They are peculiarly well-built men, taller than either the delicately formed Singhalese or the sturdy Tamils.

Conspicuous among the latter are the Chetties or Hindoo merchants from the coast of India, who are easily recognised by their enormous ear-rings, and who are accompanied by coolies carrying bales of really precious merchandise, which they are only too anxious to unpack and display on the faintest chance of a sale.

Perhaps the readiest way of distinguishing between Tamils and Singhalese is that the former bear on their forehead the symbol of the heathen god at whose shrine they have last worshipped—a spot, a circle, straight or curved lines in white, black, red, or yellow;[7] and also almost invariably retain their national head-dress, namely, the very becoming turban,—whereas (with the exception of the Anglicised clerks, who adopt European dress in every detail save that they wrap a long waist-cloth over their trousers) the low-country Singhalese of every degree are always bareheaded—their long, glossy, black hair, of very fine quality, being turned back from the face, held by a semi-circular comb round the back of the head, and coiled at the back in a knot, which men of the wealthier classes secure by means of a handsome, very large tortoise-shell comb, which contributes another touch to the feminine appearance of the ‘pretty,’ and, for the most part, beardless men.

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Footnote 7:

For full details of these, see ‘In the Himalayas,’ by C. F. Gordon
Cumming, pp. 23, 24. Published by Chatto & Windus.

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In truth, a new-comer is rather apt to think that all the Singhalese are women, and that the stalwart Moormen and Tamils are the sole lords of the creation! And the mistake is very natural, for men and women generally dress almost alike—with neat white jacket, and a long white cloth wrapped round the waist, so as to form a very tight skirt down to the ankles. This is called a _comboy_, and a more inconvenient walking-dress could not be imagined. The men are almost as slender and delicate in figure as the women, and have very small hands—in fact, the most obvious distinction between the sexes is that the tortoise-shell comb is a masculine monopoly, the women generally fastening their hair with silver pins. I observed that the firmly coiled back hair is used by both men and women as a convenient receptacle for pins and needles!

Tortoise-shell forms one of the most attractive items in Ceylonese manufactures. Beautiful combs of all shapes and sizes—bracelets, chains, bunches of charms—some of the palest amber, some dark and mounted in silver. The palest yellow is by far the most valuable, being, I believe, formed of the tortoise claws only.

Jewellers are numerous, for the gems of Ceylon are far-famed; but of course the fact that (with the exception of diamonds and emeralds) every known gem is found on the Isle leads to an amazing amount of cheatery, and vast numbers of sham jewels are pawned off on unwary travellers. ‘Damned-fool steamboat gentlemen’ is, I regret to say, the name by which this section of the white race is commonly described by the astute natives.

Most of these sham gems are manufactured in the isle of Murano, near Venice, and are thence sent to Britain, where they are set in purest gold from the mines of Birmingham, and then forwarded to Ceylon, amongst other christianising influences of civilisation. They are known to the merchants as ‘steamboat jewels,’ and offered at fabulous prices, which are liable to amazingly swift reduction. Each trader describes his own store as a priceless collection of real stones, whereas all his neighbours have only real glass!

Then there are vendors of cinnamon-sticks, of ebony and ivory carving, of grass shoes, of beautifully carved boxes of sandal-wood, of coral shells, and fruit. We were chiefly captivated by bird-sellers, who coaxed us to buy whole families of darling little green love-birds, and who proved how tame they were by perching the tiny creatures on each wire of our sunshades, where they walked about happily and contented. Vain were the friendly warnings which whispered of most villanous love-potions, and told how the dainty birds had been drugged for the market. Of course we invested largely, and for the rest of the voyage our time was divided between feeding our lovely playthings with sugar-cane, and rescuing them from dangers and perils of open ports, cold baths, and unwary footsteps. One or two of them did manage to walk out of the window in our cabin, and our aviary met with divers mischances before we reached Calcutta.

We were soon instructed in the detestable Eastern custom of offering a quarter of the price asked, and gradually rising till the buyer meets the seller half-way, and while so doing we witnessed an instance of the extraordinary love of gambling which is one of the most striking peculiarities of the Singhalese—a weakness well known to old travellers, and occasionally taken full advantage of. It seems as if no bet could be proposed too ludicrous for some one in the crowd to take it up, no terms too preposterous.

The case in point was that of a lady who was bargaining for a very beautiful large tortoise-shell comb. The price asked was high, that offered was so absurdly low that it was at once refused, and the matter dropped. Just then a bystander said jokingly, ‘I’ll toss you whether I give you the sum she offered, or nothing.’ ‘Done,’ was the reply. The merchant won the toss, and pocketed the ludicrously small sum without a murmur, the lady receiving the coveted comb as a memorial of Singhalese gambling.

Of course we very soon found our way ashore, and explored the old fortress and batteries which tell of the successive occupation of Galle by the Portuguese and Dutch, each of whom left abiding traces on the Isle, in the form of fortifications, churches, and houses; while their descendants form distinct bodies in the heterogeneous population which has drifted hither from so many lands—Persia, China, Malacca, Arabia, Coromandel, and Northern India, to say nothing of the pale-faced races of Europe.

I cannot say that the handiwork of the Dutch is generally poetic, but here all prosaic details are glorified by the wealth of vegetation, and even the fortress and the streets are shaded by Suriya trees—_i.e._ the yellow _Thespesia populnea_, whose delicate straw-coloured blossoms contrast so beautifully with its dark glossy leaves. And the pleasant bungalows, with their wide pillared verandahs, which form the coolest and most delightful resting-place in the heat of the day (being invariably furnished with comfortable chairs), are one and all embowered in gardens where all lovely things grow in rank profusion, veiling the pillars and half covering the roof—exquisite blue clitoria, orange venusta, purple passion-flowers, lilac and white clematis, mingling their starry blossoms with those of the glorious crimson tacsonia and splendid blue or white convolvulus; and luxuriant fuchsias, while heliotrope, gardenias, and roses blend their fragrance with that of the loquot and orange-blossom, and with the breezy freshness of the sunny sea.

Of course we experimentalised on all manner of Eastern fruits, doubly tempting because offered by such comely and gentle brown people, and amongst other novelties we proved the excellence of bright-green ripe oranges, followed by a more serious luncheon of pine-apples and divers curries of superlative excellence, after which we started for a drive, so as to make the best possible use of the exquisite afternoon.

Our road lay through groves of graceful and luxuriant palms, bread-fruit, and jak trees with their glossy foliage and huge fruit, and thickets of flowering-shrubs, whose delicious fragrance scented the air. Here and there we passed a group of Flamboyants—magnificent trees, well named ‘the Flame of the Forest,’ so gorgeous are the masses of scarlet and gold blossom, which in May and June rest on delicate feathery foliage of dazzling green. Especially fascinating to us was the _Hibiscus mutabilis_, a shrub whose masses of rose-like blossoms daily change from white to crimson. Each morning sees the bush covered with newly opened flowers gleaming like freshly fallen snow, and ere the sun sets all have assumed a lovely rose colour.

Exquisite living creatures, gossamer-winged, skimmed through the blossoming forest in this sweet summer-world. Amid the flame-coloured and golden blossoms flitted splendid butterflies, some pale blue, some yellow, others velvety black with crimson spots, and brilliant metallic-looking dragonflies.

Flowers familiar to us only in stoves and hothouses were there in wild luxuriance—ipomeas, convolvuli, orchids, the quaint pitcher-plant, and many another blossom; while ferns which we deem rare and precious formed a rich undergrowth of golden-green, the loveliest of all being the climbing-ferns, which, creeping on delicate hair-like stem, form a tangle of exquisitely dainty foliage veiling trees and shrubs. In some districts I have seen these growing to such a height, and hanging from the trees in such masses, that the natives cut them as we would cut bracken, and use them for thatch, the long black stems reaching down to the ground, and acting as rain-conductors.

Here and there clumps of graceful bamboo waved their feathery branches; and broad shining leaves of the yam, resembling huge caladiums, and the still larger and more glossy plantain, clustered round the picturesque native huts, whence pleasant, cheery-looking people or curious small brown children came to offer us flowers or wonderful toys, made of strips of palm-leaf, twisted into stars, wheels, birds of paradise, and all manner of strange forms, suspended on long thin grasses, so as to tremble and quiver with a breath—most ingenious creations.

What these people may really be, a casual traveller cannot of course judge, but they look like embodiments of contentment: their rich mellow bronze colouring is most attractive, while their soft brown eyes suggest deep wells of quiet thought. It does seem so strange at first to be in a land where _all_ eyes are brown, and _all_ hair black, and straight, and silky!

Before these novelties had lost their first charm we had reached Wakwella, a hill clothed with cocoa and other palms, overlooking a fair valley, richly wooded, and through which the Gindura, a broad river glittering like silver, and with a thousand silvery veins, was winding westward through vividly green rice-fields to the sea.

We sat on a grassy headland and watched the soft grey and blue and gleaming green blending in the silvery sea. Presently, as the sun lowered, the light grew golden, and poured in misty rays of glory, adding its dreamlike beauty to the forests of cocoa-palms and the ranges of lovely hills. It was a scene of intense peace, only marred, as is too often the case, by the human voice—doubtless the raw material for perfect music hereafter, but, as a general rule, strangely discordant with nature’s calm in its present crude form.

I have sometimes listened in amazement to discussions as to the relative anguish of losing sight or hearing, and have marvelled almost invariably to hear the crown of sorrow awarded to the latter! Just think of the endless variety of joy which the soul drinks in through the eye, compared with the very divided pleasures of hearing—the countless harmonies of form and colour on which the eye rests unwearied with ever new delight, compared with the few chords of melody in all the jarring world of sound. How few notes that are never discordant! How few voices that never become wearisome, for no other reason than just because they _are_ sounds! It seems as if perfect silence was the one joy of life most hopelessly unattainable.

So, at all events, we thought on that calm evening, the repose of which was utterly destroyed by the arrival of many fellow-creatures. There was nothing for it but to make a mutual-protection party, bound by a solemn vow of silence, and to retreat to the farthest spur of the hill, where we might sit and drink in the loveliness of that strange dreamy shore, while earth’s many voices sang soft lullabies, and soothed us to rest.

Even here, however, all harmony was marred by one jarring sound, namely, the everlasting hum of the cicala, whose myriad army holds its noisy revel in every Eastern grove, utterly destroying what should be the principal charm of the solemn forests—the vainly longed-for silence. But as the sun sank below the horizon a sudden stillness fell on all insect-life, like the sudden stopping of machinery. The ear could scarcely realise relief so sudden. Then we were conscious that the noisy bipeds had likewise all departed with the daylight, and that we too must follow.

Beautiful night-moths appeared, hovering among the blossoms with tremulous flutter and sudden dart like humming-birds. Then through the darkening foliage flashed a thousand fire-flies in mazy circling dance, suggesting the invisible presence of Titania and her maidens, crowned with pale-green flames. These spirit-lights appear and disappear suddenly, as each insect, at its own sweet will, shows or veils its fairy beacon—a tiny intermittent spark. These dainty torch-bearers are in reality minute beetles, not much bigger than a house-fly, and their light would wane in presence of their West Indian cousins, which the natives carry in dry gourds, riddled with holes, and which are so brilliant that a dozen of them act instead of a lantern. ’ Returning to Galle, we found about two hundred people at the hotel—passengers from half-a-dozen different ships bound for all corners of the earth. The prospect of a noisy _table-d’hôte_ dinner seemed too much out of keeping with our recent impressions, so we preferred returning to our floating home.

Never can I forget the glory of the heavens that night and the brilliancy of the stars, all of which were mirrored in the calm harbour, which likewise glittered with gleaming reflections of many-coloured lights on land and ships. The water seemed doubly still and dark by contrast with the pallid white phosphorescence that played along the surface—sometimes in quivering tongues of fire, intensely bright, dazzling like electric light, then fading away to reappear a moment later in fitful ghostly gleams. It is a pulsating light, like that of the pale lambent flame of the Aurora. So fascinating was this scene that for hours we sat on deck watching it, sometimes shooting along the water in coruscations of fire, sometimes just rippling into golden sparkles like sea-stars; following in the wake of every tiny boat, and touching her sides with living flame, while each stroke of the oars flashed fire, and each leaping fish scattered a starry spray.

Is it not wonderful to think of the myriads of luminous animalcules which must exist to produce these mysterious submarine illuminations! I am told that they are of all colours, blue, white, and green, and so tiny that it is calculated that fifty thousand would find ample swimming space in a small wine-glass of water! The commonest of these microscopic creatures is something like a tiny melon, but their forms are very varied.

I had the good fortune once to travel in the same ship with a naturalist possessed of an excellent microscope, and a very delightful companion he proved, day by day conjuring up new marvels from the exhaustless treasure-house of the deep. One small bucket did all the work of his Lilliputian fisheries, and brought him a never-failing harvest of strange wonderful creatures, of which he then made most faithful paintings, of course magnified a thousand-fold. But the tiny prisoners resented having to sit for their portraits, and wriggled restlessly till they attained to a _nirvana_ of their own, and evaporated altogether!

At daybreak we again hailed one of those marvellous native outriggers, and, pointing to a bay of pure white sand, overshadowed to the water’s edge with cocoa-palms, made our brown brethren understand that there we must go. As we neared the shore, and looked down through the transparent depths of that lovely sea, we could distinguish beautiful corals and strange water-plants. No ‘dim water-world’ is here, but a sea of crystal, revealing its treasures with tantalising clearness, while each rippling wavelet cast its shadow on the rocks and sand far below.

At last we reached the little bay, whose white coral sand was thickly strewn with larger fragments of the same, as though flakes of sea-foam had suddenly been petrified by some fairy touch. Of course the charm of collecting these was irresistible. Soon we had heaped up a little mountain of treasures while our rowers looked on in much amusement and tried to explain to us that it was altogether poor stuff we had found.

Then from a hut on the tope came a kindly pleasant-looking family, men, women, and boys, clothed in white raiment (as beseems dwellers in Paradise), and laden with all manner of beautiful corals brought up from the reef. It was so early that their morning toilet was incomplete, and the men’s long silky hair floated on their shoulders.

Some merry little brown natives swarmed up the cocoa-palms, and threw us down young creamy nuts. It was very curious to watch them run up and down the tall smooth stems, simply knotting a strip of cloth round themselves and the tree, so as to give them a ‘lean-to’ for their back. Then, by sheer pressure of feet and hands and knees, they worked their way up to the leafy crown.

The nuts selected for us were scarcely half ripe, so that the rind, instead of being hard wood, as in the old nuts which are exported to England and other distant lands, is still green like the shell of an unripe walnut, and the inside coated with transparent cocoa-nut jelly. Besides this, each nut contains a good tumblerful of sweet cool water, a very different fluid from what we find in the old nuts that reach England. Nevertheless, all new-comers ought to be warned that this is a delicacy which does not suit all constitutions; and however refreshing a drink of young cocoa-nut milk may be, it is well for the unacclimatised to partake sparingly. Happily, on the present occasion none of the party suffered for their imprudence, although we feasted freely, while sitting beneath the palms, which spread their tender film of quivering foliage overhead, like the fairy web of some great gossamer spider.

This, remember, was in December; and as we revelled in the soft blessed atmosphere, which made each breath we drew a sensation of joy, and the mere fact of existence a delight, a vision rose before us of how differently it fared with all at home—some on the moors, perhaps, battling with storm and blinding sleet; others in the murky city. The very thought of mists and sleet, and of the many fireless homes where wretched tattered beings shiver in squalid misery, jarred too painfully; so there was nothing for it but to try and forget Old England altogether, and think only of the loveliness around us—land, sea, and sky, each perfect in its beauty, and human beings who seemed to us as gentle and gracious as they are graceful.

Near us rose a group of stately Areca palms, faultlessly upright, like slender alabaster pillars, in this leafy sanctuary, each crowned with such a capital of glossy green as human architect never devised. But more beautiful in our eyes were the cocoa-palms bending in every direction, each stem averaging from seventy to eighty feet in height, and crowned with fronds far longer and more graceful than those of the Areca, and with several large clusters of fruit in all stages, the golden nuts hanging down, the younger, greener ones above; and, to crown all, two or three lovely blossoms, like gigantic bunches of cream-coloured wheat carved in purest ivory, each long wheat-head having at its base a small white ball, which is the embryo nut. Each bunch numbers thirty or more of these heads, and about eight or ten of the nuts come to perfection. The blossoms in their infancy are enclosed in a hard sheath, which bursts when the flower expands, and is then useful for many household purposes. I think this grain-like blossom is one of the loveliest things in creation; and well do the chiefs know its value for all purposes of decoration, resulting too often in lamentable waste of poor men’s property.

The contrast of the graceful growth of the cocoa-palm (which generally bends towards the nearest water) with the straight heavenward growth of the Areca, is noted in a native proverb, which says that he who can find a straight cocoa-palm, a crooked Areca, or a white crow, shall never die. The Areca palm bears large clusters of hard nuts—perhaps 200 on a tree—about the size and consistency of nutmegs, which, like the cocoa-nut, are encased in an outer husk of fibre. These are to these natives what tobacco is to the Briton, especially in the form dear to our sailors, the nuts being cut into thin hard slices, several of which, with the addition of a pinch of lime, are wrapped up in a glossy leaf of the betel-pepper, forming a mouthful, the chewing of which furnishes occupation for a long time, resulting in free expectoration—if possible, even more disgusting than that of a tobacco-chewer, from the fact that the saliva is blood-red.

We were sorely tempted to linger in this beautiful shady grove, but a glimpse of a wooded hill beyond carried us onward; so, taking a couple of the young brownies to guide us along a slight native track, we plunged into a jungle of exquisite tropical plants—the strange screw-pine with its pillared roots, and scarlet pine-apples, dear only to monkeys, glossy leaves and rough leaves in endless variety, old forms and new, plants which we knew from pictures and from description; creepers and climbers of exceeding beauty, and in endless profusion.

Then, as we scrambled up the rough narrow path, there burst upon us a scene of inconceivable beauty. On the one side we looked over masses of vegetation and reddish cliffs to the bluest of blue seas, edged with white surf. Beyond lay Point de Galle with its white lighthouse.

On the other side the same blue sea, washing the long shore of white sand; then range beyond range of forest-clad hills, behind which far-away blue peaks rose to a height of from six to seven thousand feet. But, in truth, it is mere folly to attempt to describe such a scene. No words or pictures can tell of the myriad beauties which link all these divers parts into one perfect whole—the joyous sunlit atmosphere and the restless repose of the calm azure sea, enfolding a land beautiful beyond expression.

It was with many a lingering backward look, such as our first parents are said to have cast on the same fair Isle ere they were driven hence, that we at length tried to leave this Paradise; and, retracing our steps through the beautiful jungle, found ourselves once more beneath the cocoa-palms, where our little brown friends awaited us with stores of creamy half-ripe nuts and lovely corals, with which our curious canoe was quickly laden.

A few hours later with exceeding regret we bade farewell to the beautiful Isle of Palms, and with our little cabin half full of corals and green love-birds, and sugar-cane to feed them with, we once more held on our course, with a sadly diminished party, and many stale jokes (scarcely jokes to a good many) about the said Point of _Gall_,[8] and all its sorrowful partings from those whose paths lay farther and farther towards China and Japan and the uttermost isles.

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Footnote 8:

The name of Galle is derived from the Singhalese _galla_, a rock.

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