164 
A VISIT TO CEYLON. 
indeed be a gorgeous object. Next in value come the Palmyra palm, 
the Areca palm, and the Kitool. After these the bread fruit and the 
mango trees, the figs of Paradise and the Aroids. He contrasts the 
lovely green of these trees with the bright red colour of the soil, largely 
impregnated with oxide of iron. “In perfect harmony, too, are the 
cinnamon-huedCinghalese themselves, and the blackish-brown Tamils.” 
The delightful situation of Whist Bungalow charmed him—command¬ 
ing a view of the sea, the mouth of the river, and the beautiful island 
in its delta. But the chief attraction of the place was its garden, 
which, under “the careful and loving hand of its owner, had become 
one of the most enchanting spots in the Paradise of Ceylon,” containing 
specimens of almost every important plant characteristic of the flora 
of the islands—a perfect Botanic garden. 
From here he passed to Kaduwella, a Cinghalese village about ten 
miles from Whist Bungalow. Here he describes native life and the 
“ most delightful feature of insensible transition from garden to forest 
land, from culture to the wilderness.” Next were visited Peradenia, 
where are the botanic gardens, and where he met the accomplished 
Director, Dr. Trimen, and Dr. Marshall Ward, the “Royal Crypto- 
gamist,” who was sent out to Ceylon to investigate the terrible coffee 
leaf disease, a fungus (Hemileja vastatrix), resembling rust in corn. 
He then visited Galle (from Galla, Cinghalese for rocks), the most 
famous and important town of Ceylon from a very remote antiquity. 
In the opinion of the Professor the Tarshish of the ancient Phoenicians 
and Hebrews can only have been Galle; the apes and peacocks, ivory 
and gold which those navigators brought from the legendary Tarshish, 
were actually know to the old Hebrew writers by the same names as 
they now bear amon the Tamils of Ceylon, and all the descriptions 
of the much-frequented part of Tarshish apply to none of the seaports 
of the Island but the Rock Point—Punto Galla.” We must not stay 
long with him while he revels in its glorious situation, its refreshing 
sea breezes, its pretty hill country, and the Villa Marina of Captain 
Bayley, “ an enterprising and many-sided man” with whom he stayed. 
The fern gardens, with native tree ferns, Selaginellte, and Lycopodia, the 
orchids, Begonise, Bromeliae, &c., were all attractions. Here, also, there 
was aprivate menagerie with rare Mammalia and birds,and an indigenous 
ant-eater, (Manis). But most attractive were the magnificent corals 
on the surrounding rocks, and a small inlet of the sea used as a dock 
for the captain’s boat abounded with these, with huge black “ sea urchins 
and red starfish, numbers of crustaceans and fishes, brightly-coloured 
mollusca, and strange worms ! ” He contrasts the colours of the corals 
of the Arabian Gulf, which he visited in 1873—yellow, orange, red, 
and brown, with the prevailing green colour of the Ceylon corals— 
yellow green, sea green—Malachite and brown-green. It is noteworthy 
that this colour (green) predominates in the island, both in the vegetable 
and animal kingdoms, and is explained on Darwin’s principles “in the 
law of adaptation by selection of similar colouring or sympathet 
affinity of colour,” and has been elucidated by Professor Ernst Haeckel 
in the “ History of Creation,” 
