284 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



couldn't help it, I had to pay twenty rupees for my ride, while an 

 old Singhalese porker, who weighed at least seventy-five pounds 

 more than I, and who had Avealth enough to buy up forty men like 

 me, was carried for ten rupees. Anywhere but in Ceylon such a 

 regulation would be too absurd to exist long, but the policy of this 

 remarkable government is to do " as it darn please " in everything. 

 On this impregnable ground it refuses to allow a healthy and 

 wealthy company to build a railway between Galle and Colombo, 

 for fear the seat of commerce in the island would be disturbed and 

 Galle outgrow their intentions. In enlightened countries, such a 

 high-handed attempt to control the natural channel of commerce 

 would be considered remarkable, to say the least, but in Ceylon 

 there is nothing extraordinary about it. All the same, it is a pity 

 there is not some wicked New York reporter on the ground to 

 prowl around for a week or two and find out just what the "di^wy" 

 amounts to, when the Colombo rice merchants, shopmen, and hotel- 

 keepers have their quarterly " whack-up " with the government. 



Having paid my ten rupees for the ride and ten more for not 

 being black, I climbed up beside my Singhalese Falstaff and was 

 followed by an ayah black enough to satisfy any government, who 

 had in charge two sweet little boys — white, too, poor little dears — 

 Avho were going to Galle to enter school. They occupied the front 

 seat, and nicer children I never saw. It was a real pleasure to 

 have such a long ride with two such rosy, round-faced, blue-eyed 

 Httle cherubs before one's eyes all the way. Without a moment's 

 delay the driver mounted his box, the bugle sounded, and the 

 horses started off at a gallop. All too quickly we were whirled out 

 of the "fort" and across the beautiful esplanade, which I saw, 

 with regret, for the last time. 



Our Royal Coach was rather loose in the joints, and we went, 

 literally, at a rattling pace. The horses were large and rather 

 raw-boned Australian " plugs," well qualified for the work they had 

 to do, and, as we had a fresh pair for every six miles, they were 

 kept either at a very fast trot or a gallop for the whole distance. 

 The road was a dead level, skirting the sea-shore all the way, and 

 beautifully smooth and hard. 



Near Panadura, the terminus of the railway which set out for 

 Point de Galle, and would have got there on schedule-time but for 

 the overruling of an all-wise official providence, the road runs 

 along the bank of a lagoon which looks like a large river, and 

 ought to contain countless crocodiles. Not for one moment does 



