42 4 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
———— 
[Duc. 25, 1884. 
SaaS eS ae a eee 
A CHRISTMAS DAY IN CEYLON. 
ie is Christmas, the day set apart the Christian world over, 
for fun, frolic and feasting. And here am I, cribbed, 
cabined and confined, with no prospect of any of these good 
things, for outside it is raining, and sleeting and blowing, 
and chilling the very marrow bones, as only a northeast 
storm can, 
I feel restless, discontented and disappointed, too, for if, 
when the option was presented me afew days ago, I had 
but. selected duck shooting instead of quail shouting, for my 
holiday’s amusement, I might at this minute have been en- 
sconced behind a blind, and perhaps warming canvasbacks 
while cooling myself, for this is glorious weather for Cur- 
rituck work. But the quail are lying snug in the woods, 
and if I knew of a dozen bevies within a mile, [ would 
hardly care to go for them, and if I did, and found them, I 
couldn’t hit them in this weather. So after all, it’s just as 
well as it is; and as my cabin is warm and cosy, my dinner 
i good one, and my pipe going well, I'll content myself with 
less exciting pastime, 
I have, when tired of study or reading, aseldom failing 
resource, my charts and my journals; the former, especially 
one on which, in a space of five feet by four, the entire 
world is depicted, are not sightly; ink blots, sea water and 
coffee stains and others which indicate the former existence 
of candle grease, adorn them, and faintly remind me of the 
rough times they have been through; and nearly every 
ocean is more or less speckled with various colored dots 
(each dot dated) from and to which radiate connecting lines, 
in some places in most confusing network. Each dot and 
the adjacent liue represents a day of my life; a day in many 
cases so completely lost that I can but say, **1 evidently was 
here then,” And some of them were undoubtedly lone days, 
too long to lose so many out of one short life. Toa certain 
extent the journals supply the deficiency, for in them I haye 
from time to time for thirty years jotted down something 
in regard to the countries i have visited, people 1 have 
known, and adventures I have met with daring the wander- 
ing life which it has been my good fortune to live. And 
the impulse has come to me to review the many—too many 
—anniversaries of this day whose history is embraced in that 
pile of weather-beaten, time-worn and soiled volumes, and 
to see where I was and what I was doing on the many 
Christmas days between 1850 and 1888, 
Two hours have now gone by unnoticed, and the time has 
not been lost. for 1 have found plenty to set me to thinking 
and remembering. There are histories of the day spent at 
sea and in port, in storms of the Atlantic and calms of the 
Equator, among the pagodas of China, and the temples of 
Japan and India; of others in South America, West Indies 
and Europe; and one in particular stands out conspicuously, 
for it began with an earthquake, which droyefrom my side, 
screaming, ‘‘Madre de Jesu, tiembla!” the prettiest Mezti- 
zoe girl in Manila (so 1 thought, and a poetic friend de- 
scribed her as an ‘‘ox-eyed houri”’), with whom I was in ex- 
ultant happiness, going trough the evolutions of the haden- 
ero. Iwas but a middy then, and such emotions as most 
probably influenced my pen, in the record of that pleasant, 
although rather too warm night, have grown sluggish, and I 
cannot hope to convey to my friends of the Forest AND 
STRHAM a realizing sense of that which I find myself no 
longer able to fully depict even in memory, of the jolly good 
time I was having (before the earthquake, I mean, that broke 
us all up); so I will not attempt it. 
I select another Christmas and some of the preceding and 
succeeding days, for it is the ‘old, old story,” and from the 
day when, over ten years ago, I first overhauled these log 
books, that 1 might make good my promise to Hallock, and 
extracted from them a story of fishing on the African coast, 
until the present, the same cause has produced the same 
effect, a letter to my friends of the Forrest anp STREAM. 
A former letter, after describing the attempt made in a little 
gunboat to wrestle in the winter tame, with the ‘‘roaring for- 
ties,” the inglorious abandonment of this wild attempt, and 
subsequent pleasant consequences which followed in the 
Island of Johana, left us sufely anchored in the harbor of 
Point de Galle, Ceylon. That occurred come fifteen years 
azo, nearly as many before, for it was in 1857, on Christmas 
Day, I bad sailed from this same harbor, and in this letter, 
after I shal} have golten fairly outside, and with a-good off- 
ing, take the back track, and tell you of a passagein which 
the ‘‘forties” were successfully encountered, and their winds 
made to work for us on our voyage from Table Bay to Cey- 
lon. They worked well, too well for the interests of the gun- 
boat, forin forming plans for her voyage, the incidents of 
the previous one had had their weight. But old time ships 
and “‘ninety-day gunboats” differ widely in their sea-going 
uulities, and when the sloop-of-war Germantown, that 
jnristmas morning, sailed out of Galle, a good portion of 
the Aroostook was still growing in the Maine forests, At 
early daylight our anchor came up, and in a very few min- 
utes the beautiful ship was fanning her way out of the har- 
bor. Isay beautiful advisedly, for she was a rare, combina- 
tion of the beauties of a yacht, a clipper aud a man of-war, 
good for eleven knots on a taut bowline. But, alas, she has 
long ceased to be ‘‘u thing of beauty;” one of the earliest 
victims of the civil war, she was buroed at this navy yard, 
hardly a stone’s throw from where | now sit and recall her, 
and there, no doubt, some of her charred timbers still lie 
submerged, . 
The anchors stowed, sails all set and yards trimmed, and 
the watch below piped down. I still lingered and sought 
my favorite lounging place, the jib netting, where very soon 
my thoughts were disconnected trom, and steadily chased by 
the ship, now dipping her stem into the waves till the dolphin 
striker touched, then lifting ind rearing uoti) the ever-bright 
copper far below the load-line rose glistening and giving 
issue to thousands of Jittle rillg and cascades; or looking 
aloft, the eye would take in and appreciate the trim taunt- 
ness of the spars, the gracefal pyramid showing white ia the 
sunshine of the sails, and the polished rows of guns, whose 
muzzles and part of chase appeared, now in line, then in 
echelon, as*we rose and dipped. Andthere, too, even in a 
calm, there was always 2 bit of a breeze, for at the calmest 
such canvas as was set, becume a great fan, and were we 
but crawling ahead, we made tien our own breeze. 
This morning that brecze was particularly grateful; it was 
the ‘morning afier,” I cared little for breakfast that morn- 
ing, and less for its following smoke and chat. My journal 
is not copious in notes, but what few there are serve to 
indicate the cause of this melancholy condition. Refer- 
ences to the songs sung, yarns spun, and lo Basses ale, 
pawne, etc., consumed the previous evening (Christmas Eve, 
mind, and the ‘first luff” on shore) in the midshipmen’s 
steerage, give me the key. How different things must have 
jooked then and now! I presume 1 must haye thought 
well of an answer I made to a toast, for I have it down yer- 
batim, but it don’t strike me that way now. 
That day, though, had been to mé one to be marked with 
a white stone, for I had enjoyed eyery minute of it; and 
sma]! wonder—it had been my first ‘liberty day” for nearly 
two months, and my fourth in nearly five. We had left 
Norfolk, Va., on the 4th of August, 1857 reached Madeira 
on the 29th, sailed Sept. 11, reached Table Bay Nov. 1, 
sailed thence Noy. 7, aad reached Galle Dec. 22; thus, out 
of 140 days, spending but eleven in port. Going to sea was 
something different in those days from in these of steam. 
With our well-appointed ship the ‘‘forties” had no terrors for 
us, and as soon as well clear of Table Bay we had struck to 
the southward, for through the peculiarities in which navi- 
gation differs from mathematics and agrees with an old- 
Hee saying, “the longest way around was our shortest way 
ome.” 
Although Ceylon, our first objective point, Jay in a 
straight steamer line about 5,000 miles N. E., we bad to 
traverse two sides of the triangle of which that line was the 
hypothenuse, to reach it. In the area of that triangle the 
S E. trade winds and equatorial calms, and then the N, BE. 
monsoons, were to be encountered, and it was nof to be in- 
vaded with safety by yessels dependent upon canyas alone; 
for the ‘southeast trades” have an uncomfortable way of 
being occasionwlly E. §. EB. and B. by S. trades, and such a 
vagary necessitates 2 long and tiresome beat to windward. 
An English clipper, the Ocean Monarch, whose skipper 
knew all about it, and was sure he would give the Yankee 
ship a rare beating, started from Table Bay the same day we 
did, bound also to Bombay. He tried the direct route, and 
reached Bombay two weeks after we did, in spite of our 
three days’ visit to Ceylon, He came in nearly empty, too, 
for his cargo of horses, to be used by the cavalry regiments 
in India, had eaten all of their fodder, and then starved to 
death and fed the sharks. 
We ran down to 39° south (the Capeisin 34° approx.), 
then due east over 2,000 miles, then, seventeen days out, and 
with Ceylon about N.N.E., and still 3,000 miles away, we 
yielded to the persuasion of a southeast gale, turned her head 
toward the Equator, and on Nov. 24 began running down 
our northing. Our gale lasted five days. It was our only 
one, but it was one to remember, I quote, Nov. 27, 
“Through carelessness of helmsman a tremendous sea struck 
ns, smashing in the starboard waist and hammock nettings, 
from fore-rigging aft. * * * Jower deck flooded over a 
foot deep, and a promiscuous pile of midshipmen, lieuten- 
ants, dishes, boots, tables, chairs and everything movable 
banked up to leeward; many contusions, but no one seriously 
injured.”’ 
Soon warm weather began to come, and Dec. 6, after days 
of baffling winds, where the trades ought to have been doing 
us fine service, they came, put our royals to sleep, and as 
we drew north they strengthened into a twelve-knot breeze; 
which, however for the Germantown, did not haye to be so 
very strong. For I find on this voyage a number of entries 
of runs exceeding 250 miles in the twenty-four hours, several 
of over 260, and one between the noons of Noy. 20 and 21 
of 278 miles from obseryation. And here I may say that 
during the two years’ cruise which followed, the German- 
town had many a lively race, notably with English and 
American clippers, and she neyer was beaten. Among the 
latter I will mention the Sonora, the Uriel and the Levanter, 
and one fine day in the December following Captain Thorn- 
dyke, of the Live Yankee, feeling sure that he could show 
us his stern windows, invited a party on board, and getting 
underway with us at Hong Kong, ran out with us through 
the Lena Channel. We deep laden with stores, he flying 
light, and at first with the light wind he crawled ahead, but 
as we cleared the land the breeze freshened, and in an hour, 
both being close-hauled, the Liye Yankee’s position was 
shifted from our weather bow to our lee quarter. Then we 
went onto Manila, and Thorndyke and party J hope enjoyed 
their dinner and the race as much as we did, 
Bui I’ve jumped an entire year, and that might be fairly 
called a digression, 
Five days of the trades ran us up to 8° south, and left us 
in the “doldrums.” 1 wonder if many of my Foknst anp 
Srream friends realize what this means? A few extracts 
from my log may show what I thought of them: ‘Dec. 12 
—We have lost the trades; run forty-three miles; hot and 
uncomfortable. Dec. 13—Hot, calm, sea like glass; run 
seventeen miles, Dec, 14—Worse and worse; fourteen 
miles flapped ahead; drinking water, and such water, but 
Increases thirst; how long, oh, Lord, how long? Dec, 15— 
A breeze at last; to be sure ‘it’s but'a very little one,’ but it 
puts new life in us.” From this improvement, and from 6° 
south we averaged over 150 miles per day, crossing the line 
with a seven-knot breeze, and on the 22d of December the 
‘spicy breezes” wafted us ito Ceylou’s best harbor, which 
haying safely reached again, I will say something about; 
that is, about the brightest reraembrance I have of it—my 
liberty day. : 
This did not occur till the 24th, for my first two days 
were busy ones. Our captain was one of thcse old-time, 
good souls, who on 8unday when reading service advocated 
doing to our fellow men as we would be done by, and all 
that sort of thing, but who on week days seemed to enjoy 
making everybody unhappy. So he took it into his kind 
old head and heart the holds needed breaking out and re- 
stowing, and as I was the master the duty fell on me to 
squat on barrels and coils of rope, and dance around bare- 
foot on water tanks, enjoying Ceylon as seen from the depths 
of the fore hold, amid variations of whitewash and coal tar; 
but early in the morning of the 24th our worthy and slightly 
beloved chief being absent ashore, visiling the mission- 
aries, I believe, the first lieutenant kindly sect some one else 
to stowing a lot of wood and water, and gave me my liberty. 
By special permission I had gone ashore at daylight in the 
market boat, for ] had then a taste I have never Jost, and en- 
joyed strolling about the stalls and observing the new, aud 
to me, strange specimens of fin, fur, feathers, and—I am 
writing in Norfolk, and must use the yernacular—“‘truck,” 
But that most all I saw was novel the stroll would not have 
paid, for the market was small and scantily provided, still 
the sight of the great sprawling turtles, strange fish and ani- 
mals, and the heaps of cocoanuts, bananas, and other tropical 
fruit, had its charm, after many days of salt horse. 
Some magnificently colored and very large fish, which I 
was told could be caught by trolling, decided me as to the 
use I should make of my afternoon. Had I known as much 
then as I do now, 1 would never have wasted any time any- 
where except over a coral bank with a hand line, expecting 
to take any fish of such gorgeous hues, After doing the 
murket, I enjoyed a short stroll about the streets, taking in 
the oddities, Oddest of all was the to me, for the iirst time 
in any country, difficulty in distinguishing the sexes; both 
wore garments of nearly the same pattern, and hair done up 
in round waterfalls, that is, the Cinghalese proper; and the 
surest distinguishing mark was that the men were the most 
effeminate and best-looking. The streets were filled with 
Malays, Parsees, Hindvos, Chinese and foreigners, by which 
term all not Indians are known. The houses were mostl 
bungalow pattern, and built of bamboo with tiled roofs. n 
wall encircles the town. 
After the stroll, a drive, and for four hours two of us had a 
grand one, We struck back into the country and on good 
roads, with agood open carriage, enjoyed the scenery, Our 
route took us through nutmeg and cinnamon plantations and 
in one of these, at a breezy cufé which surmounted a hill, we 
had a most exceilent tiffin of dishes peculiar to the Tand, 
and from our seat on the verandah, had in one direction a 
fine sea, and in the other a rural view. 
The natives of Ceylon may well be pardoned their belief, 
that in this fertile island, where the hills teem with precious 
stones, the yalleys with luxuriant vegation, and the seas with 
pearls, was the Garden of Hden; that a singular mark on 
the top of Adam’s Peak, is the trace of Adam’s first foot 
step, and that by “‘Adam’s bridge” he crossed to the continent 
of India, after expulsion from Paradise. This ‘*Adam’s 
bridge” is a continuous reef, which, extending from ihe 
northern point of Ceylon to the southern point of India, 
across the Gulf of Manaar, makes a complete barrier to all 
navigation, except by small boats, between the Arabian Sea 
and the Gulf of Bengal, with here and there a jutting rock, 
for Adam to step on. 
We drove some way into a dense forest, where we kept a 
bright but unrewarded lookout for some one of the many 
quadrupeds, such as elephants, chetahs, leopards, ete., etc., 
said to mhabit it. Then back to town for a round of shop- 
ping, of which, however, I did but liltle, although most 
tempting bargains in jewelry, sandal wood, tortoise shell and 
ivory boxes, card cases, writing desks, ete., vampoo-ched- 
dar and other shawls were offered. On our first arrival T 
had expended nearly all of my ayailalle funds, and I could 
but look and Jong. 
Hardly was our anchor down and sails furled, when the 
ship swarmed with peddlers, mostly of ‘‘precious stones,” 
whose value contrasted most strongly with the costumes of 
the men which, in niost cases, were simply a turban and a 
cummerbund, which costume has but slight advantages over 
the fig-leaf style. ‘Che stone peddlers took possession of us; 
rubies, emeralds, sapphires, catseyes, all of inestimable 
value, were displayed, and tremendous was the competition. 
In my notes made that evening I find this: ‘‘I feel convinced 
that whatever else they may be, the stones which are sold at 
such ridiculously low prices cannot be genuine, so instead 
of buying a lot of probably glass imitation, | have contented 
myself with the purchase of two very pretty and undoubt- 
ably genuine sapphires for which I paid (?)”’ And thus I 
mude that bargain: 
‘*You wish very fine stones, sar, very fine?” said my friend, 
the party of the other part. 
“No, .get out; your stones are glass, and I’ve got no 
money.” 
“Oh, no, sar; my stones genuine, sar, I can show plenty 
man got false stones, sar; my name Cheap Jack, sir; I got 
good paper, I never cheaty you. American Consul he know 
me, sar.” 
“T’ve got no money, but I'll look af them.” 
And out from his cummerbund he drew a bag, and from 
it several paper parcels, each containing “precious” stones. 
“How much for these?”’ 
“T can give you good Vargains, sar; I Bombay man, I 
want to go home to-morrow steamer. You take all, I sell you 
fifty dollar.” 
“T told you [ had no money.” : 
‘All right, sar; spose you got handkerchief, sar, litty 
knife, umbrella, tobac; can bargain all same.” 
The offer was a tempting one, but I felt sure they were 
imitations, although so perfect that had he charged me ten 
times the price 1 might not have thought so. 
He saw I suspected, and suddenly rolled up and put away 
his package; then, with a mysterious, cautious sir, looking 
all around to be sure we were unobserved, he, while saying, 
“You good judge, sar, that stones not so No, 1; you un- 
derstandy business; now | show you good thing,” and again 
from the mysterious recesses of the cummerbund came treas- 
ure; this time a little sandulwood box, in which, on velvet, 
lay two very pretty and, beyond doubt, genuine sapphires, 
They were not large, and were within my means; that is, 
when said means were pieced out with a somewhat worn 
gripsack, a lot of tobacco and my spare umbrella, 
] have no further memoranda about those stones; but if 
my memory is correct, I some months after, having on 
Chinese New Year’s Day received from my Sampan girl at 
Macao a ‘‘cumshaw” of a dozen cheap rice paper paintings, 
worth say fifty cents, returned the compliment with these 
sapphires, which, set in silver, eventually made—for a boat 
woman—u very fine pair of earrings. But I had not got 
them at so low a figure, hence my temporary embarass- 
ments. 
As afternoon adyanced, I became tired of sight-seeing, 
and I have but one singular thing to relate, and that is, that 
neither on this nor on two other visits Il have made to 
Ceylon, in one of them going to Culombo, did I see an ele- 
phant, and 1 had expected to see them as common as horses 
on Broadway. I have often since heard young men who 
had made the India tour, discourse of the quantities of these 
animals they had seen-in Ceylon. If they went to Kandy, 
they probably did; if not, they probably—hed, 
About 8 P. M. I repaired on board to get ready for my 
fishing trip, and about two hours before sunset I started 
trolling. ButI didn’t get a strike, though I trolled faith 
fully for over two hours, my line an ordinary cod line, my 
oak a cod hook, and my bait a strip of whitefish skin; but 
I did have some sensationsand thrills, and so forth, for all 
of thut. 
My boat wasa genuine catamaran. It was built of two 
logs lying parallel, and connected by three curved beams 
about fiye feet in length at right angles, the larger Icg, the 
canoe part, was about fiftven inches in diameter and hollowed 
out, leaving sides about two to three inches thick, and an 
inner capacity of about ten inches, Lhe sides being built up, 
so that while drawing about a foot there was nearly two feet 
of freeboard, This log was about twenty feet long, the outer 
log was of about half these dimensions except in length, 
which was nearer two-thirds, was sohd, and slightly arched 
ou the under side, the ends projecting upward like the horns 
of acrescent. She carried a large, eusily reefed bamboo lug 
sail nearly amidships, and would sail either end first, al- 
though generally the outrigger log was kept to windward. 
When the wind was fresh and squally, one of the boatmen 
(there were two) swarmed outon to itandtrimmedship. whe 
