32 
THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
As you approach the island from the sea, it presents a 
fresher green to the eye, and has every way a more fertile 
appearance than most parts of the Malabar and Coromandel 
coasts. This I had an opportunity of observing in nearly 
every quarter, as on my passage from Madras I almost 
completely coasted round the island. All the flat tracts on 
the sea-shore are bounded by beautiful topes , or groves of 
cocoa-nut trees, while the intermediate plain is covered with 
rich fields of rice; and the prospect usually terminates in 
woods, which cover the sides of the mountains, and display 
a verdant foliage through every season of the year. Such a 
prospect has the most pleasing effect on the eye, after being 
fatigued with the shores of barren white sand, which every 
where skirt the Continent. 
The appearance of the eastern coast is bald and rocky, and 
a few reefs of rocks run out into the sea on the south east 
between Point de Galle and Batacolo. The deep water on the 
eastern shores admits the approach of the largest vessels in 
safety; and if that side of the island be the least fertile, its 
other defects are amply compensated by the harbours of Trin- 
eomalee and Batacolo. The north and north-west coast from 
Point Pedro to Columbo is flat, and every where indented 
with inlets of the sea, frequently of considerable magnitude. 
The largest of them extends almost quite across the island 
from Mullipatti to Jafnapatam on the north-west point of the 
island; and forms the peninsula of Jafnapatam. [Several of 
these inlets form small harbours ; but so full is that coast of 
