340 RACING IN CEYLON 



trottino- bullocks in harness. The band 

 played "God Save the Queen," and we 

 had thirty-six hours to make up our books, 

 and, some of us, to raise the wind before 

 Monday. 



The Newera Elliya meeting was held in 

 the hot season, when the Governor-General 

 and other swells had left us to stew down in 

 the plains. It was, however, a colourless re- 

 production of the previous August's Colombo 

 performance, as new horses were invariably 

 reserved for the heavier stakes and lotteries 

 then. The other meetings were in a de- 

 scending scale, ending with some district 

 sky meetings, where the best part of the 

 course was cart-road, i.e., unmetalled estate 

 road, with ruts perhaps six inches deep. 

 One year they got up a steeplechase meeting 

 at Colombo. I was away, but heard after- 



