INTEODUCTION. 



NARRATIVE AND ROUTE OF THE EXPEDITION. 



(With 2 Maps.) 



At the end of March, 1899, I left England for Ceylou in the company of Mr L. A. 

 Borradaile. On arrival at Colombo we found that the Board of Trade s.s. Ceylon had just 

 left for Minikoi owing to a wreck on that atoll. This necessitated a delay of seven weeks, 

 before we could hope to sail thither, a detention further increased to eight weeks owing 

 to stress of weather. Mr Borradaile accordingly proceeded to the Jaffna Peninsula, where 

 he spent a month in familiarising himself with the life and conditions on coral reefs. 

 I meantime prepared our stores, and made arrangements for the Maldive cruise, subse- 

 quently visiting the raised limestone hills and area of the north of Ceylon'. After returning 

 to Colombo I traversed the entire coast between Negombo and Dondra Head, a distance 

 of about 120 miles. Mr Borradaile joined me, and we then settled down for a fortnight 

 at Weligama — the Beligam of Prof. Haeckel — where there is a deep bay with reefs of 

 small size across its entrance. The rich variety of animal life on the reefs both here 

 and off the Jaffna coast as compared to the reefs of the Maldives and Minikoi is a most 

 noticeable feature. 



After a tedious week's detention in Colombo, we finally left Ceylon for Minikoi on 

 June 17th, experiencing a very heavy north-west gale the whole way; in spite of this 

 the sea one night was white with phosphorescence, a very unusual phenomenon in these 

 waters. We located ourselves, and built a bungalow at a distance of about one-third of 

 a mile from the south-west end of Minikoi island, under the shadow of the lighthouse, the 

 boat belonging to which was through the kindness of Capt. Channer, R.N., freely placed 

 at our disposal. The island here is about 470 yards across between tide-marks, and 

 a broad ride has been cut, giving the only open space of any size in the island. The 

 vegetation is extremely dense, and forms a low jungle of Pandarms, Hibiscus, Hernandea, 

 Ricinus, coconut and other trees, with Pemphis acidula, Scaevola koenigii and Tournefovtea 

 argentea on the shores. At the south-west end of the island is a shrine, the grave of a 

 holy, Moslem sheikh, connected by a good, .shaded path with the village in the centre of 



1 Vide Report Brit. Ass., pp. 400—2, 1900. 



