[LECTURE IV]
CEYLON
Ceylon, which takes the first place among our Crown Colonies, is the halfway house on our long journey. As we steam towards Colombo there is little to suggest that we are nearing one of the chief harbours in the eastern world. We see a long unbroken line of coast, fringed with green coconut palms, with no trace of bay or inlet. In the background rises an irregular hill mass, 1 topped with long ridges and sharp peaks. Presently we can distinguish two great breakwaters, with a wide opening between. The southwest wind is blowing and huge waves are dashing over them, throwing up masses of foam as high as the masts of the vessels which lie inside in a great basin, calm as a lake, a mile and a half long and over half a mile wide. Here is a safe anchorage 2 for a fleet, with coaling jetties and a dry dock which can take the largest vessel afloat.
Colombo Harbour.
Like so many modern seaports Colombo owes everything to engineering. Forty years ago the roadstead was open to the swell from the southwest, except for the shelter of the little headland from which the main breakwater now juts out. In those days our vessel would have called at Galle, a hundred miles away at the southern corner of the island. We can journey to Galle now by 3 railway along the coast, through interminable groves of coconut palms, with glimpses of the sea breaking on the coral reefs on our right and Adam’s peak rising into the clouds on our left. Galle was in early times the chief port of the island, the meeting point of Arab traders from the west and Chinese from the east; it is a picturesque, old-world town, with many relics of the Dutch occupation; but Colombo has now taken its place as the commercial centre. Here is a view of the Galle 4 lighthouse, taken from the walls of the old Dutch fortifications; the building behind the palms is a new Mohammedan mosque. In a quiet corner we see native 5 fishing boats, with more palms in the background. Here again is a Hindu temple, dating from the time of the 6 Dutch occupation; the lions over the gate may perhaps have been copied from some European coat-of-arms, as they look rather different from the usual native devices.
Far away in the northeast is Trincomali, a vast landlocked 7 bay, with unlimited deep and safe anchorage, the only good natural harbour in the island, in fact one of the best natural harbours in the whole world. Here was for many years the headquarters of the Navy in Indian waters; but it is out of the track of steamers and away from the capital, so that it has now been dismantled by the Admiralty. The Navy has followed to Colombo the commerce which depends on it for protection, and Trincomali, in spite of its great natural advantages, has sunk back to the position of a third-rate local port.
Ceylon.
Before we start on our tour let us study the map and 8 form some idea of the shape and nature of the land which we are about to visit. Ceylon hangs like a pearl, as the eastern poets say, from the end of India, to which it is nearly joined by the chain of small islands and reefs which lie between the Gulf of Manaar and Palk Strait. So shallow is the passage that large steamers do not venture through, and proposals have already been made for carrying a railway across. Ceylon is almost as large as Ireland; the whole of the north is flat, and a belt of lowland forty to fifty miles wide runs all round the east and south coasts. In the southwest the belt narrows, between the sea and the foothills of the block of highland which fills up much of the interior. This block is an irregular plateau-like country, crossed by ridges from northwest to southeast, cut into by deep gorges and crowned by sharp peaks, many of which rise over six thousand feet. The rivers are short and swift, except where they traverse the broader lowlands of the north and northeast. The southwest corner, with its highlands and coast strip and its entrance at Colombo, is the real Ceylon of to-day; though in former times the coast and the interior had each a distinct and separate life and history.
The whole island is represented in the crowd, bewildering in its variety of face and dress, which greets us on 9 our landing in Colombo. Here is a typical Sinhalese, wearing the comboy, a wide length of cloth, of white or striped cotton, which is wrapped round the lower half of the body; his long hair is done up in a knot behind and ornamented with a tortoiseshell comb, which gives a strange appearance to his head. We see this comb, 10 in its most elaborate form, in the portrait of a high-caste Sinhalese; and we notice that, except for the comb, he 11 wears ordinary European dress. Here again is a native in the street wearing a shawl round his shoulders, and yet another with a neat drill jacket; the latter is probably in the service of Europeans. The building behind them is a native theatre, roofed over with green palm leaves. 12 Finally, we have a picture of a typical Sinhalese girl of the lower class.