COLOMBO. 239 



contrast is tliis genuine luxuriance of vegetation to the parched 

 and barren landscapes of famine-stricken Madras ! 



East of the Fort lies the native town, extending in a vast semi- 

 circle from the edge of the inner harbor around Slave Lake to the 

 seashore below the Galle Face Hotel. The Pettah is well-built but 

 crowded of course, and in the quarter where the principal shops 

 are, the streets are thronged with people and bullock carts. To 

 the north lies the inner harbor, where the small native craft lie in 

 shallow watei*. From the seaward extremity of the Fort peninsula, 

 a long arm of concrete is being slowly pushed northward out into 

 the deep water, to increase, by one skilful stroke, both the size of 

 the harbor and the depth of it, by enclosing behind the breakwater 

 a portion of the open sea. Toward the west we look down upon a 

 mass of huge bowlders and masses of rock hing along the beach, 

 against which the surf dashes unceasingly with showers of silvery 

 spray. Beyond these stretch the calm blue waters of the Indian 

 Ocean, dotted with white sails of fishing-boats, until, at the distant 

 horizon, the blue of the sky blends with that of the sea. 



A walk through the Fort reminds the traveller that he is in 

 contact with a different class of people and a different language 

 from anything he has met in Hindustan. The Language of South- 

 ern India (Tamil) is spoken in portions of Northern Ceylon, but the 

 bulk of the native inhabitants are Singhalese, and speak a language 

 known by the same name as that by which they are distinguished. 



Here for the first time in our journey eastward we meet with the 

 sarong, which is universally worn by the Malays, and one's first 

 thought is that the fashion was originally boiTowed from them. 



The average Singhalese gentleman is a curiosity, so far as his 

 "get-up" is concerned. Instead of pantaloons he wears about two 

 yards of cloth, either plain or figured, white or colored, wound 

 tightly around his legs from his waist down to his feet, held either 

 by a belt at the waist or by rolling the edge under. 



This primitive petticoat lacks all the good features of the mod- 

 em garment and possesses not a solitaiy advantage over trowsers. 

 Unlike the sarong of the Malay, which is worn quite short in com- 

 parison, this antiquated " pull back " reaches to the shoes. 



Its small circumference destroys all the freedom of the lower 

 limbs so necessary to a man, and compels the wearer to take short 

 mincing steps hke a girl. The meanest thing I remember doing 

 in Ceylon was to inveigle two Singhalese gentlemen into climbing 

 a high picket fence. I climbed it first, to show them how, and for 



