696 The Anievwan Naturalist. [August, 
seam of cocoa-nut palms, which appear to thrive best in the 
sandy coastal belt, but they are also abundant in the interior, 
and I have found them even high in the mountains. 
The Portuguese were the first Europeans who settled on the 
island, and for several centuries only the flat coastal region was 
known to them, as no white man dared penetrate to the mountain 
country of the interior, which was inhabited by a bold and war- 
like race, with an ancient and highly-developed civilization. The 
natives of the coast were evidently only degenerate or effeminate 
descendants of this mountain race, and very little reliable in- 
formation did the Portuguese obtain as to the state of things in 
the interior. Only now and then the natives would tell them of 
the splendor of the capital, Kandy, situated high in the moun- 
tains, the very existence of which was long regarded as a fable. 
In Kandy an ancient dynasty of kings was said to rule over the 
noble race of the Singhalese, but woe to the stranger who dared 
approach its walls. No Portuguese in those days saw the 
interior of Ceylon, and even the Dutch, who subsequently 
held the island for a hundred years, never succeeded in 
penetrating to Kandy. It was only about 80 years ago that 
the English, who took the island from the Dutch during the 
Napoleonic war, at the beginning of this century, managed to 
capture that remarkable town, and thus solve the riddle of 
The present population of Ceylon is about two millions, but 
the island would be capable of supporting more than ten times 
that number of people. At least four-fifths of this populace 
inhabits the coastal region, but only as far as the cocoa-nut trees 
go, viz., from three to six miles into the interior. Thus the 
stranger, landing for the first time in Ceylon, and seeing the busy 
life along the coast, the innumerable huts of the natives in the 
shade of the giant palms, villages miles long, extending almost 
uninterruptedly along the entire southwestern coast, from Point 
de Galle to Colombo — a distance of 75 miles — Is apt to con- 
sider Ceylon one of the most densely inhabited countries in the 
world. But if he travels in a straight line to the interior, the 
scene changes with surprising suddenness, and after proceeding 
