COLOMBO. 245 



Altliougli the authorities at Colombo gave me a very hostile re- 

 ception, its aggravating elfect was more than counterbalanced by 

 the kind courtesies I received from all the private individuals and 

 business firms with which I had anything to do. Indeed, I received 

 favors in Ceylon which, under the same circumstances, I might have 

 sought in vain in most of the States at home. 



I took up quartei's at the old Sea Yiew Hotel, the smallest in 

 the city kept by Europeans, but it was cosy and comfortable and 

 just the place for me to carry on my work to the best advantage. 

 It occupies the finest hotel site in Colombo, standing, as it does, 

 within a stone's throw of the FlajTstaff batterv, close to the sea. 

 The elevation is about forty feet, which affords a beautiful bird's- 

 eye view, Hke that from a ship's maintop. Day and night a delicious 

 sea-breeze swept through my sunny little room, and from my win- 

 dow I looked out upon the surf dashing against the rocky reef or 

 tumbhng upon the sandy shore farther down ; at the fleet of out- 

 rigger fishing canoes which saQed by e\ eiy morning like a vast 

 flock of white-winged gulls, and came scudding back every night 

 laden with their prey ; at the movements of the huge ocean steam- 

 ers as they steamed up from Point de Galle, and away again — all 

 of which formed a delightful panorama fuU of moving figures, with 

 a vast sheet of calm blue sea for a background. At night I was 

 lulled to sleep by the soft music of the surf breaking gently on the 

 shore and swishing up over the pebbles, and at five o'clock, in the 

 morning I w^as nearly bounced out of bed by the deafening report 

 of the time-gun, fired, seemingly, just by my ear. The gun might 

 as well have been fired from my window ledge so far as I was con- 

 cerned, for it was only sixty yards away, at the Flagstaff battery^ 

 but, although it used to startle me considerably at first, I became 

 so accustomed to the explosion after a while that it utterly failed to 

 waken me. Such is the force of habit. 



As soon as I got fairly over my last touch of jungle fever, I set 

 to work collecting, and from that time forward was busy with 

 specimens from daylight till dark. I rented two rooms ujDon the 

 ground floor of the hotel, opening upon the paved quadrangle, and 

 there I held high carnival with specimens of all kinds. I had 

 reached a locality where large land animals were not so numerous 

 as in India, but where fishes, reptiles, shells, corals, and marine in- 

 vertebrates abotmded, and to these I tvu'ned my attention almost 

 wholly. 



In places where natives are numerous and cheap, a collector al- 



