146 



SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PROVINCES. [Part VII. 



their wealthier parishioners, who pro\dde them once a 

 year with a set of yellow robes. -^ 



Towards sunset we had evidences of our approach to 

 the capital by the increased number of vehicles on the 

 road : bidlock bandies covered with cajans met us ; 

 coohes, heavily laden with burdens of fish fresh from 

 the sea, hurried towards the great town, native gentle- 

 men, di'iving fast-trotting oxen in little hackery cars, 

 hastened home from it^ ; and as we passed through 

 the long hne of villas, each in its compound of ilowers, 

 which forms the beautifiil subm-b of Colpetty, the Eu- 

 ropean popidation of the Fort were pouring forth to enjoy 

 theh' evening promenade, on horseback and in carriages, 

 each horse attended by a Malabar groom in picturesque 

 costume. Our way lay across the Galle-face^, an open 

 plain to the south of the fortifications, which at this hoiu' 

 is the favoimte lounge of the inhabitants ; the band of the 

 regiments of the garrison adding to its afternoon attrac- 

 tions. When we crossed it the sward was already green 

 after the shower of the north-west monsoon, and the 

 tendrils of the goat's-foot convolvulus, with which the 

 surface is closely matted, were beginning to be covered 

 with buds. A month afterwards we were amazed to see 

 it crimsoned by myriads of the full-blown flowers, which 

 had expanded in the interim and covered it as closely as 

 if it had been powdered with carmine. It reahsed the 

 beauty of the scene which Darwin describes on the 

 La Plata, where the tracts around Maldonado are so 

 thickly overrun by verbena melindres as to appear a gaudy 

 scarlet.^ 



Crossing the drawbridge and entering the Fort of Co- 



^ Tlie ceremonies connected witli 

 the robes of the priesthood are de- 

 scribed, Vol. I. Pt. IV. ch. iv. p. 452. 



^ The hackery is a lig-ht convey- 

 ance, with or without sprinj^s. in which 

 a well -trained bidlock will draw two 



persons at tlie rate of eight miles an 

 hour. 



^ Cialle-faceor Galle-faati (Dnich), 

 the fuasy or front, of the fortification 

 facing the direction of Galle. 



* Naturalist's Toi/ar/e, 4'C-) ch. iii. 



