2 
COLOMBO. 
so new to me, partly that we liad been many 
days at sea, I was perhaps the more ready to 
receive the impressions of delight with which 
my introduction is associated. But it was made 
under particularly favourable circumstances. 
Heavy rain had fallen in the night before we 
landed ; and as we rapidly drove through the 
bright clean streets of novel architecture, past 
natives familiar in pictures, by neat gardens 
under the rich unwonted foliage in the scent- 
laden air, my anticipations were more than 
realised ; and when towards evening we drove 
back to the ship through the Cinnamon Gardens, 
gazing on a picture of surpassing splendour as 
the sinking sun diffused his rich colour in a 
thousand hues over the sky, lit up the earth, 
and mirrored his dying glory in a long crimson 
gleam on the Lake, I ended a day not only of 
unmixed satisfaction but of keen enjoyment. 
After another fortnight at sea, it was pleasant 
again to look on land ; and all that last day of 
the voyage we never wearied of standing, glass 
in hand, watching on the right the amphitheatre- 
like slopes of the Java coast, laid out in coffee- 
gardens and rice - terraces, and on the left the 
more distant, deeply indented coast of Sumatra. 
The lovely islets which stud the ocean recalled 
