CEYLOX COCOA ESTATE 147 



visit to Kandy where I went in order to witness 

 the Perahera, the great Sinhalese Buddhist 

 Festival which takes place annually at the 

 time of the full moon, which falls nearest to 

 the end of July. This year it was rather 

 unusually late, the last day of the festival being 

 on the 7th August. It lasts ten days, and dur- 

 ing that time the procession nightly parades the 

 streets ; but the last night of all is the grandest. 

 Sinhalese from all the neighbouring country- 

 side flock into Kandy, and when I drove in one 

 Friday afternoon the usually empty streets 

 looked like some brilliant flower bed, from the 

 masses of red, orange, violet, and white, 

 composing the native dresses. Everyone tried to 

 have a new cloth for the occasion, and the 

 Sinhalese ladies drove about the town, loaded 

 with handsome jewellery, dressed in delicate 

 silks, with their little low-necked, short, white 

 jackets a mass of lace and embroidery. 



The grass square bordering on Kandy lake, 

 was fringed with booths. These were the very 

 strangest mixture of East and West — stalls 

 crowded with native cakes, sweetmeats and 

 fruits, next perhaps to a phonograph. Again, 

 a stall with bottles of sherbet coloured by the 

 flowers of the hibiscus, and other Ceylon 

 vegetable dyes, side by side with a 

 cinematograph. Besides these there were 

 numerous lotteries, and most popular of all — a 



