162 
A VISIT TO CEYLON. 
evolution, while the Professor for many years had been deeply 
interested in its advancement and development.” The result was that 
the application was simply refused! However, he had warm sympathy 
and encouragement from many naturalists and other friends both in 
Germany and England, including in the latter the late Charles Darwin 
(to whom, as his “honoured friend and master,” he subsequently wrote a 
letter of congratulation on his 73rd birthday from Adam’s Peak, the 
highest mountain in Ceylon), and the late Sir Wyville Thomson, of 
H.M.S. “ Challenger.” 
Abundantly provided with books of reference, microscope, scientific 
apparatus for physical observations and for photographing, together 
with trawling and dredging and surface nets, a double-barrelled gun, 
sketching and painting materials, and an almost endless variety of 
bottles, phials, tin cases, and preserving fluids, the whole stowed away 
in sixteen trunks and cases, he left his home on the 8tli October, 1881, 
and journeyed to Ceylon from Trieste, via Egypt, to Bombay, by the 
Austrian Lloyd’s steamer “ Helios” (a most significant name, Nomen 
sit omen !) and returned, via Cairo, on the 21st April following. He 
was, therefore, absent upwards of six months. He landed at Bombay 
on the 8th November, and he speaks of it as “ The glorious and 
memorable day in his life when he first set foot in a tropical land, 
admired tropical vegetation, and gazed in astonishment at tropical 
life in man and beast.” During a brief week at Bombay he chronicles 
his first impressions of tropical life and its environment in the vicinity. 
Bombay he compares to Naples, in regard to its magnificent situation 
on a deeply indented and hilly coast, beautified by a glorious vegetation, 
and its chain of islands and rocks enclosing the wide and splendid bay. 
After reference generally to the population of Bombay (numbering, in 
1872, 650,000 souls), he proceeds to describe the most remarkable and 
important element—the Parsis or Guebres—numbering about 50,000, 
descended from the ancient Persians—the men of tall and stalwart 
figures, with yellow olive faces—who by their indefatigable energy, 
prudence, industry, generosity and public spirit have gained much 
influence and play an important part. Some have been raised to the 
dignity of baronets by the English Government in recognition of their 
merits. The funeral ceremonies of this people are most remarkable. 
High up on the ridge of the Malabar Hill is their cemetery, in which 
stand the six Dokhamas or “ Towers of Silence”—cylindrical white 
towers, 40ft. in diameter and the same in height. The inside is 
divided into three concentric circles with separate open divisions. The 
dead are here exposed, the men in the outer circle, the women in the 
next, and the children in the inner, where they are consumed—except 
the bones, which are collected—by the sacred bird of Ormuz, the fine 
brown vulture, and by black ravens. 
An excursion to the Palm Grove of Mahim—the first he had seen— 
next claimed his attention. Here “ toddy gatherers” climbed the trunks 
with the agility of apes to collect the palm sap, others were busy 
gathering the fruit of the Banana. He could never tire of admiring the 
