CHAPTER XXiy. 



KANDY AND POINT DE GALLE. 



The Interior of Ceylon. — A Run np to Kandy. — Native Plows and Plowing. — • 

 The Mountains. —Kandy. — An Overpraised Town. — Summary of Ceylon 

 Collection. — The Royal Mail Coach. — Governmental Eccentricities. — The 

 Ride to Galle — Charming Coast Scenery.— A Church Episode. — Ben- 

 totte. — Point de Galle. — Neptune's Garden. — Ceylon Gems. — Classifica- 

 tion of Dealers. — Study of a Scoundrel, in Black and White. — Diamond 

 cut Diamond. — Farewell to Ceylon. 



Justice to the reader aucl to the subject demands the statement, at 

 this point, that the glories of the island of Ceylon do not lie in that 

 portion of the Northern Province described in the previous chapter. 

 It is the rugged and mountainous interior south of Kandy -which 

 contains the j^icturesque waterfalls, bold precipices, romantic 

 streams, and grand forests full of large game, which constitute what 

 is best worth seeing in this lovely isle. That is the region Sir 

 Samuel Baker has made famous in his two charming books, " Eight 

 Years' Wanderings," and "Rifle and Hound in Ceylon." But for 

 the exjDense, I would at least have seen Newera Ellia and the hill- 

 country generally, Adam's Peak, Horton's Plain, the World's End, 

 and the magnificent forests which cover the southern slope of the 

 great plateau. I would have gladly devoted a month to the hill- 

 country and the adjacent forests in the south, and but for the meth- 

 ylated spirits episode, I could and would have done so ; but the 

 Neilgherries and Animallais were behind me and Borneo ahead ; so 

 I was partiall}' consoled for being obliged to leave the most inter- 

 esting half of Ceylon, as an excuse for another visit in the mysteri- 

 ous future. 



However, at the last moment I went up to Kandy, as do all well- 

 behaved travellers who visit the "balmy isle." The distance by rail 

 is seventy-two miles. From Colombo to Rambukana the country is 

 low and covered by a succession of rice-fields or swamps, alternat- 

 ing with jungle -covered knolls, which rise out of the rice-fields Uke 



