218 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. ( CEYLON). 



[Vol. XIX. 



his address being printed in the Indische Mercuur (Amsterdam) 

 of 6th June 1905. In the issue of the same periodical of 13th 

 March 1906 appeared a communication from Mr. van Houten, 

 in which were given further interesting particulars relating to 

 the drawings and the two persons chiefly concerned in their 

 execution. As the majority of these paintings are of Ceylon 

 fauna, and were drawn in Ceylon by a young Ceylonese under 

 the direction of a Dutch Governor of Ceylon, I thought that 

 my fellow-Ceylonese would be interested in their history. I 

 have therefore translated all that Mr. van Houten has written 

 about them,* and have added in a third section such additional 

 information as I have been able to glean. 



Croydon. Donald Ferguson. / 

 ; -Y^f 



Section I. 



This time it falls to my lot to have the honour to draw your 

 attention for some minutes to the subject chosen, which is the 

 collection of plates that for the moment adorns this hall, and, 

 according to the intention of our Director, will remain here on 

 exhibition for a period of four weeks. 



For some twenty years I have myself been the lucky owner 

 of these plates, the possession of which I acquired at a book 

 sale of the firm Mart. Nijhoff at the Hague. 



" Lucky " owner, I called myself, and I believe that you 

 will consider the word lucky rightly chosen when I shall have 

 told you all the facts concerning the plates. 



In the first place, they are already fairly old, having been 

 made between the years 1754 and 1757, or just a century 

 and a half ago. 



In the second place, they appear, in spite of this, saving for 

 some brown damp- spots on the paper, especially as regards 

 the perfectly fresh colours, as if they had been drawn and 

 coloured only in our present time. And £hat notwithstanding 

 that they were made in the tropical regions, namely, in Ceylon 

 and Java, in the stirring times of the East India Company, 



* All the footnotes to the first two sections are by myself, and Mr. 

 van Houten is in no way responsible for them. — D. F. 



