Chapter II: Colombo

The native town—St. Thomas’s College—The Fort—The lake—Suburbs—White
ants—Cinnamon Gardens.

About three years slipped away—years into which were crowded all the marvellous interests of sight-seeing in India and elsewhere, and of a first return to a wide and very sympathetic home-circle in the old country. (Probably none save those to whom years have brought home life’s gravest lesson of many lifelong partings, can fully realise how greatly the pleasure of wandering in far lands is enhanced by the certainty of the interest and ever-ready sympathy with which letters from the wanderer will be welcomed by loving kinsfolk beside their own firesides, nor how much of the incentive to travel seems to pass away when strangers fill the once familiar homes.)

So pleasant memories were the earnest of pleasant days to come, when an invitation from the Bishop of Colombo tempted me to face the wintry seas in bleak November, hoping possibly to reach Ceylon by Christmas. But a week of wild storms in the English Channel, and a very narrow escape of foundering off the Eddystone Rock, resulted in our fine new steamer barely succeeding in making Plymouth harbour, and her passengers explored the beauties of Cornwall and Devon till another steamer was ready to take them on their journey.[9]

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Footnote 9:

See ‘Via Cornwall to Egypt.’ By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published by
Messrs. Chatto & Windus.

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This eventful double voyage proved a time of lifelong interest to several young couples on board, and indeed welded all our ship’s company into such general harmony and kindliness, that the ‘Hindoo-Othello’ passengers were thenceforward a recognised brotherhood in Ceylon. Some, I fear, were heavy of heart when the last evening came, and all lingered late in the starlight, enjoying the delicious scent of jungle-flowers, which the balmy land-breeze brought us as a greeting from the forests of Southern India.

I need scarcely say that as we neared the beautiful Isle, some of us were on deck with the earliest glimmer of dawn, and were rewarded by a glorious crimson and golden sky, long before the sunrise—a red horizon against which Adam’s Peak and the lower mountain-ranges stood out sharp and clear in purple relief, just as plainly as I had previously seen them from Galle, from which, indeed, the Peak is about equidistant.

Soon after 7 A.M. we anchored in Colombo Roads (for the great breakwater which has endowed Colombo with her present noble harbour, is a creation of later date), and very quickly our steamer was surrounded by wonderful native canoes of all sizes, and boats of heavier build, bringing friends to meet the new-comers. Soon the Bishop arrived himself, with the kindest of welcomes for me, and for a pleasant new addition to his clerical staff, and a few minutes later we were in a big boat, being rowed ashore by Tamil boatmen, who cheered their toil by singing wild songs with wilder refrain to the accompaniment of plashing oars, reminding me of the Gaelic songs of the Skye boatmen.

The Bishop’s carriage awaited us at the landing-place. Here, as in India, each horse is accompanied by its own horsekeeper, lightly dressed, and barefooted, but with large scarlet turban and sash, for in Ceylon these men are all Tamils. Whatever be the distance and whatever the pace, they pride themselves on running abreast of the horses, ready to help in any emergency, and shouting to secure a clear way through the crowded streets.

We had good need of their services, for our way lay through the Pettah, or native town, thronged by an ever-fascinating kaleidoscope of infinitely varied human beings, all picturesque, forming a succession of groups of living bronzes, each a study for an artist. Only, alas! even the very first close glimpse of these revealed that suffering has a footing in Paradise, for we saw a van full of semi-nude lunatics from the asylum taking a morning drive, and several poor creatures with limbs swollen and distorted with elephantiasis, and (more painful still, because caused by human callousness, though the charge of deliberate cruelty is repudiated) we were sickened by the sight of the pretty little bullocks, drawing the native carts, all alike covered with most elaborate patterns of curls and curves like intricate Runic knotting, either branded or cut in narrow strips right into the hide. When the scars have healed, they produce a result as beautiful in native eyes as are in their own sight somewhat similar scars on the bodies of various savage tribes.

But to see the poor beasts who have recently undergone this process, literally covered with these carefully manufactured raws, in many cases festering and a prey to clouds of flies, is simply revolting. In defence of so cruel a practice the owners of the bullocks maintain that not only is this a preventive of cattle-stealing, but also a safeguard against rheumatism. It has even been asserted that in some cases animals have been ‘hide-bound’ and never could be induced to fatten till their hides had been thus destroyed.

Were it not for this detail, these pretty little zebus, with their humped neck and deep dewlap, their silky skin and slender limbs, are very attractive. The majority are black, but many are silvery grey. In lieu of reins and a bit, a hole is bored through the nostril, and the poor beasts are guided by a rope passed through the nose. Some are very fast trotters, and native gentlemen drive them at a rattling pace in small hackeries. Larger palm-thatched carts or ‘bullock-bandys,’ but similarly balanced on two wheels, are used for general traffic. We passed some of these full of women and children, all brown and black-haired and black-eyed, and all smiling and chattering, and glittering with jewellery and gay with coloured draperies. The driver of the bullocks stalks along between them and the cart, tall, brown, and black-bearded, with little clothing, carrying a cane for the encouragement of his good cattle. One marvels how these active little creatures can draw such heavy weights simply by the pressure of the wide projecting yoke against the hump on their necks. For heavier traffic larger-humped cattle have been imported from India, and Ceylon itself supplies a stronger variety of bullocks of a dark-red colour.

Old residents, as a rule, rather dislike having to drive through this or any other native town, but to me it was always a pleasure, as each moment revealed some thoroughly Eastern scene; and though the houses are for the most part dingy and very poor, chiefly built of mud or bamboos, and roofed with wooden shingles or dry palm-leaves, yet in this brilliant sunlight they give depths of rich-brown shadow as a background to many a bit of sparkling colour; and then the fact of their being all open and revealing all manner of domestic incidents in the home-life of races so widely different as Moors and Malays, Singhalese and Tamils, Dutch and Portuguese burghers, is full of interest to a new-comer. Many of the simple toilets are performed in the open street, especially the work of the Tamil barber, who squats on his feet facing his victim, who likewise squats with his head resting on his own knees, while the barber shaves it till it shines like a billiard-ball. It is so funny to see quite small boys being thus shaven!

All the shops are likewise open, with their varied goods—piles of brass lotas, and earthenware chatties, gay cheap cottons, fish of strange form and vivid colour, beside the familiar whiting, mullet, and soles. One which we soon learnt to appreciate is the seer-fish, which is rather like salmon, but with white flesh. Of course the vegetable stalls are attractive, but especially so the bewildering variety of tempting fruits, looking only too inviting as laid out in piles on cool, green banana leaves,—large luscious pine-apples, heaps of very bright-green ripe oranges, golden mangoes, custard apples, melons, fine gourds and splendid pumpkins, pumeloes (_i.e._ shaddocks), limes, guavas, bananas, papaws, lovi-lovis, durians, rambutans, bullocks’-hearts, sour-sops, sometimes even figs and grapes—why, these alone were an earnest of Paradise to one who had so recently escaped from a stormy winter in England! One fruit new to me, and very insinuating, was the rambutan. When ripe its rough skin changes from green to rich scarlet, and within lies a ball of cool, pleasant jelly, very refreshing. A hard uneatable kernel lies in the centre. Another very attractive little fruit, with most fragrant blossom, was the loquat, which belongs to the medlar family.

Some of the best shops in the Pettah are kept by Parsees and Moormen, who retail all manner of European goods; but a really Eastern stall is that of the money-changer, who sits on his mat amid heaps of copper and silver coin. So is that of the grain-seller, the chettie from Southern India, with his large turban and enormous ear-rings. The carrier of drinking water is also characteristic. So is the earthenware chattie, painted white and stuck on the roof to attract the glance of the passer-by, and so lessen the danger of the evil eye.

We passed Buddhist and Hindoo temples and Mohammedan mosques, but the latter seemed poor and insignificant as compared with those of India, which remained so vividly impressed on my memory. But presently our route lay through a grove of beautiful cocoa-palms, beside the blue sea, and no odious mental comparisons marred the loveliness of that scene. Our destination was St. Thomas’s College, in Mutwal, the north-eastern suburb of the city, distant about two miles from the Fort, which is the great business centre. The College stands in the same compound,[10] or grounds, as Christ Church Cathedral, which is primarily the chapel of the college and collegiate school, founded in 1852 by Dr. Chapman, the first Bishop of Colombo (Ceylon having previously been included in the see of Madras). It is also, however, the parish church of a large English and English-speaking community, as also of the Singhalese Christians in Mutwal.

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Footnote 10:

From the Portuguese _campao_, an enclosure.

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Between the Cathedral and the College stands the Bishop’s house,[11] where two large airy rooms were assigned to me, opening on to a wide pleasant verandah supported by columns, the whole coated with cool white chunam, and embowered in a luxuriant growth of flowering creepers of all gorgeous colours—scarlet and crimson, purple, orange, and vivid blue. Moreover, there were comparatively few days when we were not blessed with a delicious sea-breeze; and, indeed, though the deep-blue ocean itself was well-nigh hidden from us by waving palms and great India-rubber and other trees, we had only to descend a few hundred yards to find ourselves on its beautiful beach, where, no matter how calm the day, the great green rollers break in glittering surf on the yellow sands or dark rocks.

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Footnote 11:

This has been given over by the present Bishop to the Warden of the
College.

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To a new-comer it is inconceivable that any one could ever weary of such delicious balmy air and luxuriant vegetation. And yet one home-sick Briton expressed the thought of many when he told me that he would give all the lovely tropical scenery for the sight of a good honest turnip-field, while another only craved for ‘a good healthy shiver.’

St. Thomas’s College receives about 60 boarders, and the collegiate school has an average daily attendance of about 250 lads and young men, some of whom are pure Singhalese or Tamil, others are members of burgher families—_i.e._ descendants of early Dutch or Portuguese colonists—while a considerable number are half-castes. Almost all the boarders and about four-fifths of the students are Christians, the proportion in 1890 being 260 Christian and 43 non-Christian pupils. Of the latter, some are Buddhists and some Hindoos, who accept the inevitable Christian instruction for the sake of the first-class secular education here given. A very well-supported cricket club, a workshop with forge and lathe, and a Natural History Society, are among the details which suggest the varied interests of boy-life.

A high-class school for girls occupies a pretty bungalow close to the Cathedral.

Another very important centre of education is the Royal College, which was founded in 1836 by Sir Robert Horton, for the higher education of natives of the Isle. In August 1891 its students numbered 331, while those at St. Thomas’s numbered 333—a state of things highly creditable to the latter, inasmuch as the former is a Government college, backed by public revenue. A generous rivalry exists between these two colleges and those of India, those of Ceylon securing a full share of honours in regard to English university scholarships and Cambridge local examinations; so there is no lack of healthy emulation to keep up the standard of learning.

St. Thomas’s College supplies choristers with very pleasant voices, for the daily morning and evening choral services in the Cathedral, where the week-day congregation consists chiefly of young men from the College, who look delightfully cool in their white jackets and comboys, the Singhalese lads being readily distinguished by their tortoise-shell combs.

In connection with the Cathedral is a mission for the training of native clergy—Tamil and Singhalese—to whom are apportioned various districts of Colombo, in which they minister to their own fellow-countrymen, and to the hitherto neglected Portuguese half-castes and other classes.

Certainly no one here can plead lack of opportunity as an excuse for non-attendance at church services. Besides several Episcopal churches, there are Roman Catholic, Wesleyan, Presbyterian, Dutch Presbyterian, Baptist, and sundry other churches and chapels scattered over the town, and these (in addition to the services for the English-speaking community) have others in Tamil, Singhalese, and Portuguese, at such hours as may best suit domestic servants and others.

Notwithstanding his own incessant work, the Bishop most kindly arranged that I should accompany him on so many beautiful drives in the freshness of early morning, or the cool of the evening, that I very soon became tolerably familiar with the immediate neighbourhood and its inhabitants, feeling daily more attracted towards these gentle Singhalese, who seem always so quietly happy, always so polite, crossing their arms, and bowing so courteously, apparently never excited even when marketing—the fruitful source of Oriental clatter! Even the pretty graceful children play gently, noisy romping seeming altogether foreign to their nature. The girls (poor little dears!) are early taught to stay chiefly indoors, and by twelve years of age they are generally married, and occasionally are grandmothers before they are thirty! They certainly are a very comely race, with their slender figure, shapely well-chiselled features, and splendid dark dreamy eyes.

Their homes seem to be the perfection of village life; each picturesque bamboo hut, with its thatch of cocoa-nut leaves, wholly concealed from its neighbours by the richest vegetation, and buried in cool shade of large-leaved plantains and bread-fruit trees; while above each little homestead waves the beneficent tree which supplies the family with meat and drink, and a thousand things besides.

Certainly, clean as these mud and wattle huts are, some fastidious people might object to the fact that the raised platforms of clay whereon the villagers lie basking in their happy _dolce far niente_ (enjoying a foretaste of Buddha’s Paradise) are all plastered with cow-dung, which is said to keep away vermin, and to be less apt to become muddy in the rains than is a simple clay floor.

Here, beneath the palm thatch, the men spread their palm-leaf mats and sleep peacefully, wrapped in their white cloth, till sunrise awakens the birds. Then they bathe in the nearest stream, and wash their long glossy black hair, and for the next hour or two sit in the sunlight combing and drying it, and (alas!) renewing its gloss with unfragrant cocoa-nut oil. Then they carefully twist it into a smooth coil, fasten it with a circular tortoise-shell comb, and then rest again, perhaps weaving fanciful ornaments of split palm-leaf to decorate the entrance to the home, but certainly chewing the inevitable betel-leaf.

Meanwhile their wives are busy with the daily task of preparing curry—no fiery curry-powder, but a delicious compound of many pleasant vegetables, seasoned with pepper, turmeric, green ginger, chillies, &c., but above all, made fresh and wholly different every morning, and served with cocoa-nut, prawns, cucumbers, and all manner of other excellent dainties, served in different dishes, as we serve vegetables, forming combinations to rejoice the heart of an epicure. The principal glory of a Singhalese cook lies in the endless variety of his curries; a very desirable characteristic in a dish which forms a necessary conclusion to every meal, and on which you soon learn to count as a necessity. Every man, woman, and child, down to the very smallest, lives on curry and rice, indeed we had a theory that all domestic animals were fed on it. ‘To eat rice’ is the recognised form of describing every meal, and wonderful is the amount consumed by each individual.

The practice I have already alluded to, of chewing betel, which is practised both by Tamils and Singhalese, is most obnoxious to the spectator, as it is accompanied by continual spitting of dark-red juice, which gives you the impression that the whole population are in the last stage of consumption, and that the ground on every side is stained with blood. It is truly disgusting! and is continually forcing itself on one’s observation, which must plead my excuse for referring to it again.

The betel-leaf is rather like ivy, but more fleshy and glossy. In it the people wrap up a mixture of bits of hard areca-nut, and lime of burnt shells to give pungency. It discolours the mouth for the moment, and an habitual chewer is betrayed by the deep reddish-orange stain which has become chronic. Men and women alike seem to delight in this delicacy, though I never met a European who could endure it. However, it seems to be a wise instinct which teaches these vegetarians to consume so much lime, and it is said that the perpetual chewing of betel compensates for the deficiency of animal diet.

Of course to the passer-by these simple homes derive much of their charm from their surroundings, for the poorest is always embowered in sugar-cane, maize, or bananas; and I know no plant which so fully brings home to one the sense of tropical luxuriance as does each member of this widespread tribe of bananas and plantains, which contribute so largely to the food of the human race in all tropical countries. In one year it grows to a height of about 20 feet, each leaf being from 6 to 8 feet in length by about 2 in breadth, and each plant bearing perhaps a total of three hundred fruits in several heavy drooping clusters—green, ripening to gold—a total of about seventy pounds weight. Each fruit is enfolded in a thick leathery skin, which comes off at a touch, yielding a sweet satisfying food of most delicate flavour, of which the bananas sold in England give a very faint idea. The effort of producing such a mass of fruit exhausts the generous plant, which then falls, leaving its strong fibrous stem and leaf-stalks to be turned to account in various ways. (One variety yields the fibre known as Manilla hemp.) Then new stems very quickly spring from the old root, and the splendid plant is renewed.

To the same family belongs the huge fan-shaped ‘Traveller’s Tree,’[12] often carelessly described as a palm. It bears the same long broad leaves; but they are stiffly arranged, exactly like a great feather fan, and instead of bearing nourishing fruit like the common banana,[13] they collect water, which filters into the tightly plaited sheaths at the base of the leaves, whence a drink of pure water can always be drawn by stabbing the said base of a leaf.

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Footnote 12:

_Ravenala madagascariensis._

Footnote 13:

_Musa sapientum._

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The country all round Colombo is strangely level, and the soil is of a warm red colour. The red roads contrast curiously with the vividly green rice-fields and the luxuriant vegetation on every side.

Even the red streets are delightfully shaded by cool green _Suriya_, or sun-trees, so named on account of their delicate primrose-coloured blossoms, with claret-coloured heart, which, like the setting sun, turn red as they fade. (One of the titles of the ancient royal race was _Suriya-wanzae_, the race of the sun.) The flower curiously resembles that of the cotton plant, and also in form that of the single scarlet hibiscus, known to Europeans as the shoe-flower; but its grey-green leaves are totally different, rather resembling those of a poplar. Hence Linnæus named this tree _Hibiscus populneus_, but modern botanists have reclassed it as _Thespesia populnea_. As an everyday name, surely nothing could be more appropriate than Suriya; but Europeans generally speak of them as tulip-trees, from a very imaginary resemblance of the blossom to that familiar but less refined flower. Certainly it is in every respect unlike the true tulip-tree of North America.[14]

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Footnote 14:

_Liriodendron tulipifera._

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To me the Suriya recalls pleasant visions of the South Pacific isles, where it grows abundantly. In Fiji it is called the _Vau_,[15] and is greatly prized on account of the fibre of the inner bark, which is used by the fisher-folk for making turtle-nets, and also, when dyed of various colours, for making fringe-kilts. It is a most cheery little tree, always covered with sunny blossoms. Here its light hard-grained wood is prized for carriage-building and for gun-stocks. Like many other flowering trees which are widely spread over Ceylon, it is doubtful whether the Suriya is indigenous, though it has been found near Batticaloa apparently wild.

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Footnote 15:

‘At Home in Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 83. By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published
by W. Blackwood & Sons.

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Both Galle and Colombo are indebted to the Dutch for these pleasant avenues, which transform their busiest business streets into cool boulevards. The new-comer on first landing derives from them his very earliest impression of green shade as he passes from the harbour to the Fort, which is the chief business centre—Queen’s House (as the Governor’s residence is here called), the Government offices, and the principal European shops being all within its haunts, which comprise about two square miles.

The fortifications crown a rocky headland between the sea and the large lake. On the land side there are four bastions, and gates with drawbridges, and seven batteries guard the seaward approach. The Fort was commenced by the Portuguese in A.D. 1518. The Dutch did not appear on the scene till 1602, and when in 1655 they besieged this Fort, it was accounted one of the largest and strongest fortresses in the East, the circuit of its walls being nearly three quarters of a mile, while it was protected on one side by the sea, and on the other by the lake, which was then well stocked with man-devouring crocodiles.

So much reliance seems to have been placed on these natural advantages, that cocoa-palms had actually been planted on the fortifications; and though these were mounted by 237 cannons, their carriages were literally rotten from neglect, and in the hour of need had to be renewed with wood taken from shattered houses, and even from the churches. Moreover, so many buildings of all sorts were crowded within the walls, that it was simply a small enclosed town with a population of about 4,000 persons, of whom only about 1,200 were capable of bearing arms, the majority of these being half-castes.

On the approach of the Dutch, assisted by the troops of the King of Kandy, ‘the priests of the seven parishes of Colombo, accompanied by their terrified flocks, sought shelter from the advancing heretics within the walls.’ Its population was trebled, and then it was necessary to close the gates and refuse admission to any more fugitives. Then followed a prolonged siege, full of thrilling deeds of valour and hand-to-hand fighting. Probably the whole page of history contains no record more full of the terrible ‘romance’ of war. Every man within the Fort was fighting for dear life, for the King of Kandy had stipulated that every native captured within the Fort should be given over to him, that he might punish them as he had done those captured at Batticaloa, on which occasion he had impaled fifty living men, and had sold the rest with their wives and children to be slaves. This fate likewise befell such fishermen as were captured attempting to run the blockade and carry provisions to the besieged. As the siege advanced and provisions became scarcer, many natives attempted to escape, but all were ruthlessly driven back with whips, to add to the embarrassment of the besieged. And yet in the face of such horrors the Portuguese were weakened by internal strife, when blue-blooded hidalgos occasionally refused to obey the orders of their half-breed superior officers.

For seven long months the siege continued, all on both sides being on the alert day and night. It is recorded of the aged Governor that during all that time he was never seen without his armour. Even the Jesuit fathers and the Augustines donned armour and defended the ramparts or fought in the trenches, leaving the care of the sick and wounded to the Dominicans, Capuchins, and Cordeliers. Their zeal was intensified by a sacrilegious act of the Dutch, who, having taken an image of St. Thomas from its altar in a church beside the sea, had cut off its nose, ears, and arms, driven nails into it, and finally fired it from a mortar into the Fort. It fell into the ditch, whence it was rescued by the Portuguese at the peril of their lives, and carried in solemn procession to a place of honour on the high altar of the Church of the Cordeliers.

At the beginning of the siege there were fifteen elephants and many buffaloes within the Fort. One of the former was so very valuable as a catcher of wild elephants (having annually captured about thirty, valued at fifteen thousand crowns), that, although owing to prolonged drought there was not a green herb within the Fort, it was somehow kept alive to the end of the siege, when it became a prize for the Dutch. But every other living creature, down to cats, rats, and dogs, was devoured, and wretched living skeletons subsisted on a daily handful of rice, till pestilence in the form of fever, dysentery, and a disease called _beri-beri_, of the nature of dropsy, broke out and thinned their ranks. Soldiers dropped dead on the ramparts from sheer exhaustion, and in one day 130 bodies were buried, search parties going through the houses to carry out the dead. This during intense heat, aggravated by months without a drop of rain. Happily, however, the wells never dried up, and the besieged were spared the anguish of insufficient water. Nevertheless the recorded details of anguish during those terrible months are altogether sickening.

As the position became more and more intolerable many contrived to desert, though all who were caught were promptly hanged; a considerable number succeeded in swimming across the lake at night, preferring the risk of being devoured by crocodiles to the certain torture of starvation.

In the last extremity of famine, the Portuguese drove out all the surviving starving natives, and closed the Fort gates after them. The Dutch refused to let them pass. Thus they were hemmed in between the belligerents, and the whole party perished either from starvation or bullet wounds.

In all history there is no more thrilling page than the story of this siege, with its daily hand-to-hand fights between the gaunt living skeletons who held the Fort, and their assailants. At last one morning at daybreak the Dutch carried all the outworks, and only the bastion of St. John remained between them and the Fort. Of all its defenders there survived only one brave captain and two boys. These were soon cut down, and the besiegers having captured the bastion, poured down on the Fort, supported by a strong body of Singhalese archers. Every man who was not utterly disabled, including almost all the priests, rushed to the defence, fighting with the desperation of men in their last extremity.

That handful of brave men, faint from starvation and exhaustion, held their ground the livelong day against a vastly superior force of well-fed Dutch and Kandyan troops; the fighting was almost all hand-to-hand, with swords and pistols and hand-grenades, and continued till the darkness compelled a truce.

The dead and wounded of both sides lay heaped together in ghastly piles. Among the slain was the brave Father Antonio Nunes, who early in the day was struck by a musket-ball, but, still fighting on, presently received a severe sword-cut. Triumphant over pain, the undaunted warrior-priest still held his ground, till he was killed by the explosion of a hand-grenade. But in that force each warrior was a hero.

It was evident that to prolong the struggle was hopeless, so, though some still voted for no surrender, honourable terms of capitulation were at last agreed on. The Dutch general undertook to protect all the inhabitants of the Fort, especially the women, and to care for all the sick and wounded; also to convey all soldiers and officers to Europe, or other Portuguese settlements; and on May 12, 1656, the garrison, consisting of 190 Portuguese soldiers and armed civilians, marched out with all the honours of war—a ghastly procession of living skeletons, many of whom were scarcely able to totter on their poor legs, swollen by _beri-beri_, and almost every man disabled by wounds or burning by gunpowder. Even the Dutch could not restrain their pity and admiration of this band of heroes.

The priests, however, fearing with good reason that protection would not be extended to their sacred relics, images, and consecrated vessels, hastened to conceal these, and to unfurnish all altars in the churches, lest they should be profaned by the heretics who had dealt so cruelly with the image of St. Thomas.

When the Fort had thus been evacuated by its defenders, the Dutch marched in, and the standard of the Prince of Orange was planted on the Water Fort, a dearly bought prize, said to have cost the Dutch the lives of upwards of three thousand soldiers, besides many of their bravest officers, and an enormous outlay in money. It proved, however, the key to mastery on the Isle, the Portuguese being soon afterwards compelled to cede all their possessions.

They held the Fort of Colombo till February 1796, when in their turn they were besieged by the British, and capitulated after a very much feebler resistance, with few such thrilling incidents as those which formed the everyday history of the seven months’ siege.

Finally, in 1869, the walls of the Fort were demolished by its present masters.

As we have seen, during the Portuguese occupation no less than five religious orders were established within the Fort—namely, the Jesuits, Augustines, Dominicans, Cordeliers, and Capuchins, each having its separate monastery and chapel. Of their hospitals, colleges, and monasteries no trace remains, but an interesting memorial of that period was discovered about fifty years ago, when, in carrying out some repairs near the Battenburgh bastion, a large stone was discovered, with an inscription stating that beneath it lay the body of Juan Monteiro, the first primate of Ceylon, who died here A.D. 1536.

The city of Colombo covers a very large area, its various suburbs being separated by cocoa-palm groves, amongst which the houses of the wealthier inhabitants stand apart, each in its own large garden; many are scattered about all through the wide semi-jungle, still known as the Cinnamon Gardens, and many more are dotted all along the shores of the freshwater lake, which ramifies in so many directions that one keeps coming to it again and again, but never too often, for each fresh glimpse shows some new combination of luxuriant foliage, and most carefully cultivated flowering trees and shrubs. Some such groups form memory-pictures of delight—as, for instance, in the months of April and May, the Flamboyant (_Poinciana regia_), with its indescribably gorgeous masses of scarlet and golden blossom and delicate velvety green foliage. Or the splendid drooping clusters, also scarlet and yellow, of the _Amherstia nobilis_, which blooms all the year, though most glorious from Christmas to Easter. These relieved by the lovely lemon-yellow of the ‘lettuce’ tree, which gleams like embodied sunlight, contrasting with the blue-green of the screw-pine and the dark casurina, or the feathery misty foliage of clumps of tall graceful bamboo, all in perfect harmony with the soft pearly grey of the sky, and all reflected in the still lake.

Here and there are dark hibiscus all aglow with crimson blossom, or long pendant boughs of poinsettia, with gorgeous scarlet rosettes of young foliage in wondrous contrast with the rich green of the older leaves, splendid yellow allamandas, cassias loaded with blossom like our richest laburnum, ironwood (_Mesua ferrea_) with fragrant large white blossoms and tufts of young bright crimson foliage, jaggery, areca, talipot, and date palms, palmyra palms with their great fan-like leaves ceaselessly rustling with every breath of air, the ever-quivering fronds of the cocoa-palm glancing in the sunlight, like gleaming swords, and, most restless of all, the huge leaves of the banana ever waving—the young leaves like lovely ribbed silk of the most exquisite green, the older leaves torn by their own ceaseless motion into fluttering yellow ribbons.

One of these very attractive ‘lake districts’ still bears the unpleasant name of Slave Island, recalling the days when, under Dutch rule, the State slaves were there imprisoned every night, a prey to the mosquitos, which, alas! abound in this warm moist neighbourhood, and but for skilfully arranged mosquito-nets, effectually murder sleep. Their hateful note ‘ping’ comes in as a shrill treble to the ceaseless chorus of multitudinous frogs, some of which are literally seven or eight inches in length, so it is no wonder that they produce a good deal of croaking! In colour they are of a rich olive, shading into brown on the back, and yellow on the under side. Even the pretty little green or yellowish tree frogs add their sharp shrill cries to the concert.

This labyrinthine lagoon has a special interest in this Isle, which, strange to say, possesses no natural lakes. Those in the interior are all of artificial construction, and this is one of that very singular chain of lagoons (so apparent by a glance at the map) which lie parallel with the sea along so great a portion of Ceylon, both on the east and west coast—lagoons formed at the mouth of many rivers by their own deposit of sand, which thus chokes the original exit, and forces the stream to meander about in search of a new passage. Thus the beautiful Kelani river, which now enters the sea at Mutwal, fully three miles to the north, is believed to have formerly done so here, and to have given its name to the city, which was originally known as Kalan-totta, ‘the Kalany Ferry.’ This name was changed by the Moors to Kalambu; and the Moorish traveller Ibn Batuta, who devoted twenty-eight years to visiting all sacred Mohammedan shrines, and who in A.D. 1347 came to Ceylon to do homage to Adam’s Footprint, describes this as ‘the finest and largest city in Serendib.’ But when the Portuguese established themselves here in A.D. 1517, they further altered the name in honour of Columbus; hence its present form.

Happily the charming lake remains, with all its pleasant boating, and a fine carriage-road winds round each curve of its very irregular shore-line, forming a delightful drive. The ‘Galle Face’ (the most delightful of esplanades) lies between its still waters on the one hand, and on the other, the thundering surf of the Indian Ocean. This, the ‘Routine Row’ of Colombo, derives its name from being the first of the seventy miles of beautiful driving-road along the sea-coast to Galle. It is the only mile not embowered in trees, and is a strip of grass-land too much haunted by burrowing crabs to be absolutely safe riding-ground, but which nevertheless answers the purpose for the daily evening meeting (and even for the annual races, as we are reminded by a circular race-stand in the centre. For these, however, a better site is now proposed). Carriages drive up and down a broad red road close to the great green waves.

The fashionable hour for this daily routine is from five to seven, and as Ceylon is so near the equator that the sun sets all the year round at about six o’clock, every one gets the full benefit of the ever-changing sunset glories, and magnificent they sometimes are during the stormy monsoons. So brief is the twilight that often before seven it is quite dark, and carriage-lamps must be lighted; but on the other hand, sometimes after a brief interval, an afterglow commences which lights up the sky with colours more beautiful than that of the sunset itself. The actual variation of sunrise and sunset ranges from about 5.45 A.M. in August to about 6.23 A.M. in February, and from 6.7 P.M. in August to 6.5 P.M. in February. Even at Galle, in the far south of the Isle, the difference between the longest and shortest days is only forty-one minutes.

Time is 5 hours, 19 minutes, 28 seconds ahead of Greenwich, so it is about noon in Colombo when England is only half awake.

Another thing worthy of note is the singularly slight variation in the tides, the rise and fall of which rarely exceed three feet.

An interesting peculiarity of the coasts of Ceylon is the frequency of water-spouts as forerunners of the monsoons. They rise from the shallow lagoons, or from the sea along the coast, taking the form of a rotatory inverted cone, with a dark umbrella-shaped top of fine spray. Several of these gently sportive water-whirlwinds are sometimes seen from the shore in the course of a day, but they never seem to do any damage.

Speaking of variable natural phenomena, I must just mention the weather, concerning which it seems to me impossible in Ceylon to speak of ‘dry’ or ‘rainy’ seasons as in India, for the rainfall varies so greatly in different districts, that when one part of the Isle is being parched, another is being saturated. Sometimes when we were in dry low-country districts, gasping for cool air, and all the farmers and villagers craving for rain, our friends in some of the coffee districts were being nearly drowned by the incessant deluge pitilessly pouring on them day after day and week after week, threatening to wash all the soil from the rocky mountain sides, and to float them and their crop right down to the sea.

Roughly, the south-west monsoon is supposed to commence at Colombo— _i.e._ on the south-west coast—about the end of April; and the north-east monsoon (which sweeps the east coast and the north, right up to Jaffna) is due at the end of October. A small burst, called the ‘little monsoon,’ precedes the full downpouring of the clouds.

It is during the north-east monsoon, which generally includes Christmas, that the pleasant but very treacherous land wind or ‘along-shore’ wind, as it is called, prevails, bringing colds and fever and all manner of evils. Here most emphatically is ‘the wind from the east,’ bad alike for man and beast. Happily it is limited to the winter months; during the other nine, Colombo is greatly favoured with westerly sea-breezes.

Due consideration of these general laws will enable a traveller to avoid the heaviest rainfall on either coast; but as regards the mountain districts, one might as well calculate on weather in Scotland, for sometimes while one side of a dividing range is revelling in sunshine, the other is being deluged.

It is said that whereas the rainfall of Great Britain ranges from a minimum of 22 inches to a maximum of 70 inches, the minimum in Ceylon is 70, and the maximum exceeds 200 inches. But it all falls in from 100 to 200 days per annum, in the intervals of blazing sunshine.

Just beyond Galle Face lies Colpetty (or, as it is now spelt, Kollupitiya), one of the most delightful suburbs of Colombo, but all around the grassy shores of the beautiful lake (and indeed in every direction) are scattered the pleasant homes of the residents in this favoured Isle.

The majority of these are all of the bungalow type—_i.e._ only one storey high, built of stone or brick, and with the roof very high-pitched, both on account of the heat retained by the tiles and to throw off heavy rain. Thus much ventilation is secured, as inside, instead of a ceiling, there is only a tightly stretched white cloth; so the whole space within the roof is a reservoir for air—an attic wherein rats and rat-snakes dwell in anything but love, and often a great wobble and commotion overhead tells of a battle _à outrance_. But that canvas is the playground for many creatures, whose tiny feet you see running along. Thatch being prohibited in towns for fear of fire, the majority of these houses are roofed with round half-tiles, laid alternately so as to fit into one another and throw off rain.

Every house is surrounded by a wide verandah, supported by a row of white pillars which in the older bungalows resemble creamy-white marble. This beautiful polished surface was produced by a preparation of shell-lime called _chunam_, but I am told that the secret of making it has been lost. These cool verandahs, which generally extend right round the bungalow, are at once the main feature and chief luxury of oriental houses. Furnished with comfortable lounging chairs and light tables, they become pleasant family sitting-rooms, with all the advantage of being out of doors, combined with the comfort of being in shadow and looking out to the bright sunlight through a veil of exquisite foliage and bright blossoms.

For the gardeners (or their masters) seem to vie one with another who shall raise the most fairy-like profusion of beautiful flowers. So roof and pillars are alike overgrown by luxuriant creepers, while hanging baskets are filled with rare plants, and an endless variety of bright-leaved caladiums adorn the edge of the verandah. The flowering creepers are often trained to climb the neighbouring trees, which are thus festooned with lovely blossoms—blue, crimson, or gold.

The indigenous flame-coloured gloriosa, orange venusta, vanilla, orchids, begonia, white and yellow jessamine, roses, fuchsias, the vivid blue clitoria, and a tiny bright-blue convolvulus, strange pitcher-plants, gorgeous passion-flowers of all colours, and the delicate lavender blossoms of the Thunbergia, are among the most abundant beauties of these flower-embowered homes. Here and there a richer glow of rosy lilac reveals the gay foliage of the Bougainvillea, garlanding some sober tree with its bright wreaths of delicate leaves. In short, everything flourishes in this hot, moist atmosphere, and the mingled perfume of a thousand tropical blossoms is wafted on every breath of breezy sunshine.

Unfortunately we cannot quite forget that the warm moisture favours other growths less attractive, of which the most annoying is a delicate white fungus which rapidly covers all clothes, gloves, boots and shoes, papers and books, involving ceaseless watchfulness and exposure to the sun to save them from becoming hopelessly mildewed. In cases where it is possible to apply it, citronella oil is a useful remedy. Neglected scissors and knives turn to a mass of rust; and sometimes the mould fungus even gets into the very grain of the glass covering pictures, so that it is impossible to remove the opaque stains. As to drawing-paper, it becomes hopelessly mildewed as soon as it is landed; and the only possible corrective is to coat the paper with white paint ere commencing to colour—an unsatisfactory process, but better than revealing fungus-stars in every direction.

Then, too, the rough coir-matting on the verandahs, and the gravel which is generally laid close round bungalows, remind us that their primary object is to keep off snakes, which dislike gliding over rough substances. Some very prudent people even object to overhanging trees, by which snakes may possibly climb so as to drop on to the house; but, as we have seen, the majority ignore this risk for the sake of a flower-embowered home. Still it does not do to forget that though Ceylon is Paradise, the serpent still asserts his presence and his power in the fairest gardens.

Then in house-building another serious foe has to be taken into account— namely, those stealthiest of aggressors, the white ants, properly called termites—little soft white creatures about an inch long, which look quite incapable of doing mischief; and yet no Samson in the house of the Philistines could work more deadly harm than they when once they discover some secret means of access to the woodwork of a house. Carefully keeping out of sight, they work so diligently that in an incredibly short space of time what seems to be solid rafters will prove to be mere hollow shells full of powdered wood and cunningly cemented clay (where they obtain the clay and glue is as great a mystery as is the silk and web supplying power of silkworms and spiders).

The wood of the palmyra palm and of the ebony-tree are the only Ceylonese timbers capable of resisting their ravages, and of course the demand for these is so much greater than the supply, that other wood— chiefly that of the jak-tree—is largely used in house-building, but necessitates constant watchfulness. For this reason, wooden posts can never be sunk in the ground, but must rest on a stone foundation well in sight; and even then these clever engineers often frustrate this precaution by constructing very unobtrusive tubular bridges of clay, through which they mount unseen, and so attack the woodwork at their leisure.

Fortunately the workers are all wingless; and though the perfect termites, both male and female, are each endowed with four wings, they happily do not take an unfair advantage of poor human beings by flying to new centres of destruction. Indeed the females, or rather the queens, have enough to do in recruiting the ant-legions, as each is supposed by the lowest computation to lay 3,000,000 eggs every year!

They seem to set very small value on their wings, which they shed on the smallest provocation. Sometimes in the evening swarms of these winged ants, both white and black, fly in at the ever-open doors and windows, attracted by the lights; and after hovering about for a few moments, they vanish, leaving their wings behind them. I have seen scores of wings thus dropped on a dinner-table; and occasionally the bereft owners drop beside them, looking naked and humble.

Not only the woodwork of a house, but furniture and goods of all sorts, must be jealously guarded from the attacks of white ants; and any indication of clay in any crevice calls for immediate inspection. Legions of black and red ants of various sizes, some quite tiny, others half an inch in length, also involve constant watchfulness; for while the former would quickly make such havoc of a whole bookcase, or of a packing-case full of books, that little of them would be left except the backs exposed to view, the active little ants are always in search of something to devour, especially fruit, cakes, and sweetmeats of all sorts.

As a defensive measure, the legs of beds, tables, pianos, &c., are raised on glass stands, or set in jars full of water, while empty black bottles laid in rows on the matting afford a tolerably secure foundation for packing-cases and luggage of all sorts.

Provided they can be kept from poaching, the black and red ants are invaluable scavengers, as they are for ever seeking what they may devour; and as there are upwards of seventy different species of ants in Ceylon, their collective efforts in this direction are not to be despised. Not only do they bodily carry off the corpses of any cockroaches, beetles, or tiny lizards which they happen to find about the house, but in the case of larger creatures, whose skeletons it may be desirable to preserve, such as snakes or small birds, it is enough to leave them secure from crows and such awkward dissectors,—the ants may safely be trusted to pick them faultlessly clean, and ready for exhibition in any museum. It is, however, needless to add, that if plumage is to be preserved, or butterflies, the ants, so far from being benefactors, are transformed into an army of myriad foes, from whom it will tax a collector’s utmost ingenuity to defend his treasures.

But the red ants must be forgiven many indiscretions in consideration of the vigorous war which they wage against the altogether destructive white ants. Any one who likes can see this for himself by breaking open a corner of one of the innumerable white ants’ castles which abound in the Cinnamon Gardens and elsewhere—anthills perhaps six feet high of most intricate internal construction, divided into separate compartments, and these into cells, all connected by passages, and all built of the finest clay, which the creatures can only obtain by excavating it from beneath the layer of white quartz sand which covers the ground to a depth of several inches.

By removing a corner of the roof, you not only may watch these busy masons hard at work, but the chances are that in a very few moments some wandering red ant will discover the breach in the enemy’s fortress, and forthwith he will summon a whole regiment of small but most energetic red warriors, who will commence a furious onslaught on the hapless soft white masons, and then rapidly retire, carrying with them the corpses of the slain. So you see the red ants are man’s useful allies. (In seasons of scarcity the ant-legions in the arid districts of Manaar are still more valuable as involuntary foragers. The Tamil villagers dig into their nests and rob them of all their store of divers seeds.)

The aforesaid Cinnamon Gardens form one of the most popular suburbs of Colombo, a considerable part having been sold by Government as building lots, and purchased by wealthy individuals, who have here built luxurious homes nestling in beautiful gardens. It has, however, the disadvantage of being somewhat remote from the sea, and so losing the freshness of the breeze, and being left a prey to armies of mosquitos. But it is a very favourite evening drive, the grounds being intersected by miles of good carriage-roads.

Of course the prevalence of one shrub implies monotony, and the multitudinous great ant-hills to which I have alluded are a fair indication of the general neglect which has suffered these once jealously guarded gardens to degenerate into a tangled jungle, rather suggestive of a neglected shrubbery of Portugal laurels, glorified by the natural growth of many flowering plants and a profusion of climbing vines, especially a large white convolvulus, which blooms only at night, and hence is commonly called ‘the moon-flower.’ The red and yellow blossoms of the Lantana, the lilac Osbekia, a white flower like scentless jessamine, rose-coloured periwinkles, and quaint pitcher-plants, are among the many uncultivated plants; and there are also a number of large trees, which were originally planted for the sake of their shade.

The aromatic cinnamon laurel itself, when left to follow its natural will, grows to a height of about forty feet, but when under cultivation it is kept pruned to about fifteen feet. As is the case with many Ceylonese trees, its young foliage is scarlet, and gradually changes to a dark glossy green, so that in the distance you would fancy these young scarlet tips were blossoms. The latter are insignificant, of a dingy white, with pale yellow inside, and have rather an unpleasant smell. They flower in January, and by May have developed into small purplish-brown berries, each provided with a cup like that of the acorn.

These berries, when bruised and boiled with the young shoots, yield a fragrant oil, with which the wealthier natives anoint their hair, and, like all brown races, some follow their daily ablutions with a little polish of oil, just to make them of a cheerful countenance. This cinnamon oil is sometimes mixed with cocoa-nut oil, and burns with a most brilliant light. From this oil a thick white wax can be prepared, which used to be in great request for the manufacture of the tapers burnt in Buddhist temples, and also, under Portuguese rule, for making candles for the Roman Catholic altars. But so small is the amount of wax obtained from a very large quantity of berries, that the manufacture could never be a paying industry, and so it has fallen into disuse, and the crop of purple berries serves to fatten flocks of turtle and cinnamon doves, whose soft cooing is heard on every side.

Oil of camphor can be distilled from the roots of the cinnamon laurel. An oil is also extracted from the leaves, which is sold under the name of clove oil. The leaves when crushed in the hand have a certain aromatic fragrance like that of cloves, but as to ‘spicy breezes,’ there is no more smell of cinnamon here than in a hazel copse in Britain. That is not perceptible till you break a twig, or till the poor young shoots have been flayed and the inner bark is ready for export.

The cultivation is something like that of a willow copse, straight young shoots springing up round the stump of the plant previously cut. These in their turn are cut about every second year—that is to say, when they are about five feet high and about two inches in circumference. A good many of these are sold as walking-sticks, and find a ready market on board the steamers among the passengers, who think there must be a special charm in a cinnamon stick, though in truth it is hard to distinguish it from our own common hazel.

But of course the real thing to be secured is the highly aromatic inner bark. So first of all the leaves are stripped off, and then the bark is slit from end to end with a sharp knife, which has a curved point; with this, aided by fingers, the bark is carefully removed in long pieces. These are heaped up and left to sodden, so as to facilitate the next process—namely, that of scraping off the outer rind. In order to do this, each piece is placed on a round piece of wood and carefully scraped with the knife, the almost nude brown workers sitting on the ground and using their toes as an extra hand to steady the end of the stick. The bark is then left to dry in the sun, when it rolls itself up into tight quills. These are then neatly sorted and packed, three or four inside of one another, and are made up into bales covered with cloth, and are then ready for export. Broken quills are either sold as chips or reserved for the distiller, who thence extracts oil of cinnamon, having first crushed and pounded the bark, and then soaked it in sea-water for a couple of days. The oil thus obtained is of a rich yellow or red colour.

Cinnamon is so singularly sensitive that great care has to be taken with regard to its surroundings on board ship, as a bale of very fine cinnamon will lose much of its delicate aroma if packed among bales of coarser bark. Various expedients have been tried to remedy this. The Portuguese and Dutch isolated the bales by packing them in cocoa-nut fibre, or in cattle-hides; but it is found that the only real safeguard is to pack bags of pepper between the bales.

Alas! in Ceylon as in some other countries, intending purchasers have need to guard against possible fraud in their investment, for it is said that certain native dealers have attained amazing skill in the substitution of other worthless barks, notably that of guava, which, after being duly prepared, is left for some hours to soak in the strongly scented water left after the distillation of cinnamon oil. This imparts the requisite sweet taste, and then a touch from a cloth dipped in cheap cinnamon oil completes the deception. Quills of either this prepared guava bark, or of coarse jungle cinnamon, are neatly packed inside good quills, and then only an adept can detect the fraud.

Strange indeed it is, looking at this jungle of neglected plants, with their glossy scarlet and green foliage, to think how enormous is the influence they have exerted on the fortunes of this Isle—an influence literally of life and death; for so resolute were the Dutch in maintaining their monopoly of this precious spice, that in A.D. 1659 a law was enacted assigning death as the penalty of buying or selling the wild jungle cinnamon, which was the only sort then known.

A few years later the same penalty was attached to stealing the precious bark, to giving or receiving it, or to distilling camphor from the roots of the tree. The least injury to a cinnamon plant, wherever found, was punished by flogging, and when these Government Gardens had been established, the destruction of a plant in these involved certain death. But even supposing a cinnamon shrub to grow by chance on a man’s private ground, Dutch law declared all such to be the property of the State; no one save the authorised peelers dared to touch it under severe penalties, and if the proprietor, anxious to keep his land to himself, and safe from State trespassers, dared to cut it down, he was liable to capital punishment!

It is difficult to understand how such laws could have been possible, seeing that wild cinnamon grew so abundantly throughout the south-western provinces, and in the Kandyan forests, and even on the east coast near Batticaloa, that there seems every reason to believe it to have been indigenous. The same inference is drawn from finding it described in an ancient Sanskrit catalogue of plants as Singhalem, or ‘belonging to Ceylon.’

On the other hand, it is certainly singular, if this was the case, that in enumerating the precious products of Ceylon in medieval ages, when cinnamon was so greatly prized, it is never once mentioned by any writer prior to Nicola de Conti, who in A.D. 1444 speaks of it as growing here. This certainly seems to give reason to the argument of those who maintain that it was imported from Africa—probably from Cape Guardafui— to the south-western districts, where (like the Lantana in our own days) it rapidly became acclimatised, its seeds being carried by birds to more remote inland districts. Hence perhaps the reason for the Dutch law against shooting crows.

Certain it is that when the Portuguese arrived here in the middle of the fifteenth century, cinnamon was the one object desired, and the selection of Colombo with only an open roadstead, to be the headquarters of trade, in preference to Trincomalee with its magnificent natural harbour, could only have been due to the fact of its being the natural centre of the cinnamon region, and near to Cotta, the residence of the Singhalese king, by whose favour alone could the precious bark be obtained.

Finding that cinnamon was the one item desired by those foreign traders, the king required the low-caste Chaliyas, who were weavers, to pay him a heavy tribute in prepared bark; so (at the proper peeling season, in May, after the rains have softened the bark) they had to leave their looms and enter the forests in search for cinnamon—no sinecure in those days, when wild beasts abounded, and when no less savage Kandyans were on the alert to harass their low-country neighbours, sometimes cutting down the cinnamon trees in order to annoy the foreigners.

The Kandyan king himself, however, was open to trade, and in exchange for salt and Indian cloths, sent large consignments of mountain cinnamon, much of which was too acrid for exportation. The Portuguese seem to have sent out military escorts from their various forts to guard the Chaliyas in their arduous work of collecting the _Maha badda_ or great tax; and the _Capitan de Canela’_, or chief of the cinnamon-peelers, was treated both by the Portuguese and afterwards by the Dutch with much honour.

Nevertheless these Chaliyas cannot have had a very happy time of it, judging from the law enacted forbidding them to make any complaints to the governor, except through the superintendent of the cinnamon plantations, on pain of being put in chains for three years. We may infer that complaints were not frequent, and that the art of ‘grinning and bearing’ was brought to great perfection.

Under the Portuguese rule, the collecting thereof seems to have gone on fairly enough. Though their barbarous cruelties in war were almost beyond belief, it was reserved for the Dutch to make such laws as I have just quoted, in order to secure a monopoly in trade. Amongst these was the enactment of a fine of a thousand guilders for each plant of cinnamon or any other spice exported from the Isle to India or Europe. This was evaded by the Dutch themselves, who surreptitiously exported seeds, and it is said plants also, to Java, and there established flourishing plantations.

But from the end of the fifteenth century till the middle of the nineteenth, the cinnamon of Ceylon stood unrivalled, and the Isle supplied almost all the spice used in Europe. Its price was kept up both by the Portuguese and Dutch, by occasional bonfires of surplus stock, so that there might be no glut in the market, such as has in modern days of free trade caused such fluctuations in its price. In the days of the monopoly, when the export was restricted to 8,000 bales of 100 lb. each, the price in the European market for cinnamon of the finest quality was twelve shillings per lb.; and between A.D. 1753 and 1787 the price rose to seventeen shillings and eight-pence. Now, when about 12,000 bales are annually shipped, one shilling per pound is the highest price that can be obtained for the best bark.

In the first place, the high price of cinnamon led to the extensive use of cassia, which is largely exported from China and India, and which, though coarser and more pungent, strongly resembles cinnamon. Then when Java, Tillicherry, Madras, Guiana, Martinique, and Mauritius all succeeded in growing cinnamon, the market was flooded with such coarse bark, selling at such low prices, that cassia was in its turn almost driven from the field. It still, however, holds its ground in the manufacture of chocolate for Russia and Turkey, Mexico and Germany, where its pungent flavour is preferred to the more delicate cinnamon. But in the manufacture of incense for Greek and Roman Catholic churches and heathen temples, for medicinal purposes and domestic use, and also in the preparation of ‘Thorley’s Food for Cattle,’ cinnamon is largely used.

To return to the ‘Cinnamon Gardens,’ whence I started on this long digression: these and similar plantations were started by the Dutch only in the last century, in order to be independent of the supplies collected in the jungles in the interior of the Isle. They were established all along the south-west coast, wherever there was a fort to protect them, beginning at Matara and Galle in the south, and extending as far north as Negombo and Chilaw. Some were on a very large scale, this one at Colombo (Marandhan) covering 3,824 acres, while that at Negombo covered 5,137 acres.

They seem to have been simply tracts of the great jungle in which wild cinnamon grew in dense profusion, more especially between Negombo and Chilaw. Apparently the work of the Dutch State gardeners was simply to clear the land of other jungle shrubs, fill up the vacancies with cinnamon seedlings, and drain the ground. Nature supplied the moist heat which is the first essential of cinnamon culture, and the shrub grows well even on poor soil. Nevertheless, it responds generously to more hospitable treatment, and it is said that when portions of the Cinnamon Gardens were purchased by private individuals, some who fed their land with rich manure reaped a sevenfold harvest—in other words, they gathered 350 lb. of bark to the acre, on land which had previously yielded 50 lb.

The natural soil of these gardens is very peculiar. The whole surface is of the very finest snow-white quartz sand; this, however, is only a layer a few inches deep, covering a grey sand, beneath which lies a stratum almost entirely composed of sea-shells, so that the roots of the trees do strike nourishing soil. Such is the longevity of the cinnamon laurel that many of the trees, which must be fully a hundred years old, are still in full vigour.

When the British obtained possession of Ceylon, Government of course succeeded to the monopoly, which was retained till 1832, when it was abandoned, and the trade in cinnamon thrown open to all merchants on payment of an export duty of three shillings a pound. The Government Cinnamon Department, however, retained its staff of highly paid English officials and numerous native officials, together with hundreds of peelers, sorters, &c., till 1840, when, on the representation of the merchants of the impossibility of their trading against such competition, the Government connection with the trade was altogether severed, and the export duty lowered to one shilling per pound. Five years later this final tax was also removed, but by this time the substitution of cassia and coarser cinnamon from other places had so lowered the market that it has never since recovered.

So the Government Gardens were sold at very low prices to private individuals, and these at Colombo were reserved to be disposed of in building lots, as purchasers could be found. A plot has recently been assigned to the Parsees for the erection of a ‘Tower of Silence’ for the disposal of their dead.

Speaking of the cinnamon laurel and of the rigorous Dutch laws concerning it, reminds me of another very attractive member of the laurel family—namely, the spicy nutmeg-tree (_Myristica fragrans_). As the Dutch resolved that Ceylon should monopolise the trade of the whole world in cinnamon and pepper, so they assigned to the Moluccas the exclusive right to grow nutmeg and cloves. Quite pathetic stories are told of the manner in which certain tender young trees which found their way into gardens in Ceylon were ruthlessly cut, and their owners haled to prison.

Happily under English rule the nutmeg-tree has fared better, having been formally introduced by Mr. Anstruther in 1838, so now it flourishes without fear, and its fruit is perhaps the prettiest that grows. At first sight it resembles a round golden-yellow pear, hanging beneath its glossy green leaves, but when fully ripe this golden fruit divides and reveals a ball of yellowish-scarlet mace closely wrapped round a thin shining brown shell, within which lies the familiar nutmeg. The yellow outer flesh makes an excellent preserve. A favourite colonial story tells of an imperative order from Britain to grow more mace and fewer nutmegs!