*3 



mountains of volcanic trap, without vegetation. The water for 

 the supply of the town is collected in the rainy season, in 

 enormous tanks, formed by walls of concrete built across the 

 lower ends of the valleys. In the Bay of Aden the weather is 

 usually lovely. Many beautiful jelly-fish, of every possible hue, 

 may here be seen " within the shadow of the ship " — 



" Blue, glossy green and velvet black, 

 They coiled and swam, and every track 

 "Was a flash of golden fire." 



The town and precincts of Colombo, in the island of Ceylon, 

 are exceedingly interesting, both from the richness of the tropical 

 scenery and the picturesqueness of the Kanarese, as the natives 

 of Ceylon are called. The native boats, which are long and 

 narrow, and have a curious outrigger to keep them from cap- 

 sizing, have always attracted attention from the passing traveller, 

 both from their peculiar construction and their great speed. The 

 Mohammedans have a legend that the Garden of Eden was in 

 heaven and not on earth, and that when Adam and Eve were 

 cast out Adam fell on Adam's Peak, the highest mountain in 

 Ceylon, where the mark of his foot can be seen at the present 

 day to attest the truth of the legend. Eve, they say, fell some- 

 where else, and she and Adam went about the world for 200 

 years seeking for one another. Fortunately, by a happy accident, 

 they met in the neighbourhood of Mecca, after an amount of 

 journeying to which the wanderings of Evangeline were but a 

 trifle. The lecturer next gave an account of a visit to the temple 

 of Kali, at Calcutta, and a description of the effigies and pictures 

 of this hideous goddess and her fabled attributes. Kali or Kali 

 Ma — " the black mother," as she is called — is represented as a 

 female with four arms. In one she holds a sword, in another 

 the head of the giant Ravena, whom she has slain ; with the other 

 two she is encouraging her worshippers. For earrings she has 

 two dead bodies, and she wears a necklace of skulls. Her only 

 clothing is a girdle made of human hands. She stands with one 

 foot on the thigh and the other on the breast of her husband 

 Siva. It seems impossible to realise that such a hideous figure 

 could be an object of reverence or love to any human being. 



