376 



NA TURE 



[August 17, 1SS2 



sincerity as a man of science that his choice finally fell 

 on the latter. In leaving Galle he turned his buck upon 

 civilisation, upon intercourse with fellow-zoologists and 

 upon all the aid which would have been afforded to him 

 by the works of tho:e who had preceded hi n in similar 

 studies there. But the charm of exploring hitherto un- 

 trodden fields of discovery, of pursuing his studies in 

 undisturbed solitude, and, we suspect, of dispensing with 

 the dress-coat, which appears to have been a weight on 

 his mind in all his intercourse with Anglo-Indian society, 

 turned the scale in favour of Belligemma, a little fishing 

 village, inhabited by 4000 Singhalese, without a solitary 

 European among them. Nor had he reason to regret his 

 choice. "The six weeks," he says, "which I spent in 

 Belligemma were overflowing in impressions of beauty 

 which I shall never lose, and are among the most delight- 

 ful of my Indian memories. I might have found Galle 

 a better and more convenient place for my special zoolo- 

 gical purposes, but it could not have been nearly so rich 

 in materials for enriching my views of nature and 

 mankind in general." 



Many preparations were necessary for a lengthened 

 stay in so solitary and primitive a place as Belligemma. 

 In the first place, permission had to be obtained from the 

 Governor, Sir James Longden, for the Professor's residence 

 in the Rest-House, since a stay of a few days is all that 

 is usually allowed in these official substitutes for hotels. 



The permission was of course, readily granted, and the 

 Professor digresses to give a few words of strong 

 commendation to the order and regularity which every- 

 where follows British rule, and to the practical good sense 

 with which the Home government varies its mode of 

 dealing with its colonies according to their requirements 

 and idiosyncracies. Ceylon, for instance, is independent 

 of the Indian government, and immediately under the 

 control of the Colonial Minister in London ; the Governor 

 is virtually supreme, and seldom has recourse to the 

 decisions of his purely deliberative parliament. It is 

 customary to ascribe to this despotism, so averse to the 

 English nature in general, most of the grievances which 

 affe:t the prosperity of the island ; but better reflection 

 seems to show that a colony containing two and a half 

 million inhabitants, among whom not more than 3,000 arc 

 Europeans, requires the concentration of power in a single 

 hand, and that a truer ground for complaint is the 

 Governor's short tenure of offi:e, four years barely 

 sufficing to make him acquainted with the needs of the 

 island and its inhabitants. 



Prof. Haeckel's next care was to provide himself 

 with letters of introduction for his stay in Galle, en route 

 for Belligemma, and having made all necessary purchases, 

 to see his sixteen chests securely packed on a great two- 

 wheeled bullock cart which was to occupy a week on the 

 road between Colombo and Galle. Bullock carts form 

 the only means of transit for heavy goods in those parts 

 of Ceylon which are provided with roads. The large 

 ones carry as much as forty hundredweight, and are 

 drawn by four humped oxen or zebus. The waggon is a 

 babarous two-wheeled contrivance, with a covering of 

 plaited cocoa-nut leaves, and the weight has to be carefully 

 disposed so as to throw the centre of gravity exactly over 

 the axis of the wheels. Hundreds of such carts, some 

 with two, others with four oxen are thus employed along 

 the roads connecting the towns of Ceylon. 



( in December gth, Prof. Haeckel left the hospitable 

 Whist Bungalow, accompanied by the hearty good wishes 

 and judicious counsels of his host and other friends. 

 His description of the journey from Colombo to Galle is 

 graphic and interesting ; we mu=t confine ourselves, 

 however, to one or two points, which seem most likely to 

 interest English readers, who may perhaps be already 

 familiar with the main points of a journey so often 

 described. A railway now takes the place of the old 

 carriage road for about one third of the whole distance. 



The line keeps close to the coast, traversing the palm 

 woods in a direction almost due south and ending at 

 Caltura. The continuation of the line from Caltura tr> 

 Galle, which would be of the greatest advantage to the 

 latter place, has not been sanctioned by the government 

 from the apprehension that Galle would thereby be 

 enabled to compete with Colombo -as the chief town of 

 the island. The intercourse between the two towns is 

 very lively and constantly increasing, so that of the 

 commercial success of the railway no doubt could be 

 entertained. Unhappily, the persistent desire to elevate 

 Colombo to the prejudice of Galle has influenced the 

 Government to refuse a concession to the company that 

 was able and willing to find the capital for the 

 undertaking. 



" This action and its motive is the subject of much and 

 very general complaint. Travellers have no resource but 

 either to hire a very expensive private carriage, or to- 

 trust themselves to the 'Royal Mail Coach' which 

 makes the journey daily between Caltura and Galle ; 

 but this is also very dear and far from comfortable. 

 . , . . The most trying part of this coach journey 

 and of all similar journeys in Ceylon is the cruel 

 torture to which the unhappy horses are subjected. 

 The Singhalese appear to have no idea that driving is an 

 art which does not come by nature ; nor that any process 

 of education or 'adaptation' is necessary to prepare 

 horses for going in harness. On the contrary, they appear 

 to think that the whole affair is one of intuition, and that 

 the knowledge of how to pull is hereditary in horses. 

 Without any previous training the unhappy animal is 

 fastened to the carriage by a very clumsy and imperfect 

 harness, and then tortured with every variety of ingenious 

 device, until, in sheer de.-peration, he sets off at a galop. 

 . . . . The Holy Inquisition itself was not more fertile 

 in resources for bringing heretics to repentance ; and as 

 1 sit on the box-seat for a quirter of an hoar or longer 

 at a time, I often wondered for what sins these unhappy 

 animals could thus, with any justice, be punished. It is 

 possible that similar conjectures arose in the minds of 

 the black coachman and conductor, who no doubt p .0- 

 fes ed Siva worship, and believed in the transm 

 of souls. Perhaps they thought that by inflicting these 

 tortures they were avenging themselves on those cruel 

 princes and warriors who once oppressed their people. 

 Either some such idea as this, or their total want of 

 sympathy with the sufferings of animals (perhaps, too, 

 that curious belief existing in some parts of Europe that 

 animals have no feeling), must account for the fact that 

 the Singhalese regard the torturing of horses and oxen as 

 a kind of amusing pastime. The arrival of the mail 

 coach, and the changing of the horses is the great event 

 of the day at every village, and all the inhabitants turn 

 out to watch the proceeding with eager curiosity, to 

 inspect and criti ise the passengers, and to take an active 

 part in the torturing of the freshly harnessed horses. 

 When despair at last induces the animals to take flight, 

 they rush in headlong galop, followed by the yells of the 

 assembled crowd, until their breath fails and they fall into 

 a slower pace for about half an hour, when, covered with 

 sweat, with foaming mouths and trembling limbs, they 

 halt at the next station, and are released for a time from 

 their sufferings. It need hardly be said that this mode 

 of travelling is neither pleasant nor devoid of risk 

 to the traveller who trusts himself to the mercies of 

 the Mail Coach driver. The coach itself is often upset 

 and broken to pieces ; the terrified horses spring 

 suddenly to one side, or push the coach backwards 

 into a banana bush or a ditch. I was always careful 

 to be ready for a spring from my perch on the box 

 seat. It is scarcely credible that the English government, 

 usually so solicitous for order and discipline should have 

 allowed this cruel treatment of horses to continue so long, 

 and not have taken steps for its repression, at all events as 



