250 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



From Aden Dr. Harvey sailed for Point de Galle, Ceylon, 

 where lie landed on the 5th of September, and was welcomed 

 with hearty kindness and attention by Dr. Kelaart, to whom he 

 had been furnished with a letter of introduction. 



In a country drive of eight miles with this gentleman on the 

 evening of his arrival, he made his first acquaintance with the 

 tropical scenery of this beautiful island ; and his delight was 

 little exceeded by that which he had experienced on his first 

 landing at Cape Town. "How I longed," he writes, "for 

 Mr. Ward, as we drove for miles through one vast ' Ward's case ' 

 of cocoa-nut, areca, and other palms, ferns without end, and very 

 many noble tropical shrubs in blossom. Plumerias as large as 

 apple-trees, Allamanda cuthartica in the roadside hedges, 

 Musmnda, looking like trees covered with milk-white butter- 

 flies, &c. I can give you but a mere shadow of what seemed 

 to me a paradisaical jungle. I suppose in a week I may think 

 differently, for Dr. K. sat by me quietly while I was ecstatically 

 looking out of one window or the other. The first part of the 

 drive we entered a cocoa-nut forest. Thousands of this lovely 

 palm-tree at all ages, their trunks bending in every direction ; 

 the great leaves of the young and vigorous ones, and the smaller 

 crowns of the old, showing the ' rise and fall ' of vegetable life 

 very strikingly. The large drooping plumes of the Caryota 

 look like those on hearses, if one can fancy them magnified 

 for a giant's use. It would make a superb colonnade for a 

 cemetery. The evening fell, and on our return, as we drove 

 along in the darkness, the air was sparkling with fireflies. 



I rose early the next morning, and crossed the harbour in a 

 canoe, over high ground-swells, very pleasant to ride over, as the 

 boat sat like a cork on them, bolt upright. When we landed, 

 I and my servant started up a narrow pathway through the 

 jungle, full of wild flowers and shrubs, and shaded by numerous 

 screw-pines. After some time we got to the seaside of the 

 point, and I went down on the rocks to pick. It was just 

 possible, by running in and out at the retreat and advance of 

 every wave, to pick a bagful of Algae, while showers of spray 

 were giving me a pleasant bath. 



I sail from this on the 7th, for Trincomalee. I now think I 

 shall stay three months at Ceylon, and give up Singapore and 

 Borneo, because, from what I see here, I know that were I to 



