CEYLON COCOA ESTATE 215 



never a sound does one hear to disturb one's 

 devotions. Strange development of time. 

 Almost adjoining this Christian Church are the 

 grounds of the great Buddhist Temple, the 

 sacred shrine of Buddha's tooth. To many 

 natives a spot so holy that pilgrims often arrive 

 in Kandy from the different Buddhist countries 

 of the Far East. 



On my return I had rather a novel 

 experience. I crossed the Mahavillagange 

 river in a primitive kind of catamaran. I left 

 the town early on Monday morning in a rick- 

 shaw, which proved a most delightful mode 

 of conveyance, my journey being mostly 

 downhill. The morning air was unusually cool, 

 my coolie ran down to the Ferry (five and a 

 half miles) in less than an hour. These 

 rickshaw coolies are fine athletic looking men, 

 but they are said to die early owing to over 

 strained hearts. As I expected my hackery to 

 meet me on the other side, I paid my rickshaw 

 coolie his fare, the small sum that equals one 

 and sixpence of English money and embarked in 

 the very primitive boat. Imagine the trunk of a 

 big jungle tree about two and a half feet wide 

 and perhaps twelve feet long scooped out in the 

 centre, across which battens are nailed to act 

 as seats, not one atom of freeboard is left above 

 the seats and very little between them and the 

 water. From one side of the trunk and at 



