PREFACE 



Miss Gordon Cumming and others have written 

 so well and so exhaustively on the subject of 

 Ceylon that there is little left to say, and I 

 should not have presumed to put in my word 

 were it not that, writing as I do from a Planter's 

 Bungalow, I think I have tapped a new and 

 different stratum of information. 



Should you, my dear Sir, or Madam, who 

 have lived in the island as many years as I 

 have months, perchance open this little book, 

 my earnest advice is, " Close it at once." Your 

 experienced eye will find nothing but the tritest 

 of truisms. 



My point of view must needs be superficial. 

 I write mainly as a woman to women — the 

 mothers, sisters, and future wives in England 



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