“April 8th.—Yesterday we sighted Ceylon, and during the day sailed slowly past it at a good distance from its shores, which with a glass I could see to be magnificently wooded. The first conquerors of Ceylon were Portuguese, the Dutch took it from them, and the English in turn drove out the latter, and have held it ever since, which, mutatis mutandis, is about the history of all our colonies.
“The highest mountain in Ceylon is called Adam’s Peak, about 7,000 feet above the sea, which we could see dimly in the far background. Nearer us, we saw ‘Westminster Abbey,’ some 2,000 feet high, and much closer to the coast. We are now within 300 miles of Madras.
“April 11th.—Madras is a splendid place to look at from shipboard. I go ashore this morning. Surf-boats came early alongside, curious looking things, about forty feet long, very light, not drawing more than two feet of water, and manned by thirteen to sixteen coolies, with long oars. We saw also some catamarans, these being made of three logs of wood just tied together, and it is perfectly astonishing to see how they go along over the surf, paddled by two Hindoos. Well, the captain and myself went ashore, to dance attendance at the halls of the great. How it would open some of the Natal people’s eyes if they could only see how things are done here! to see the Hindoo clerks in the merchants’ houses, in the custom-house, everywhere; fine tall men, some young, some old and venerable, all arrayed in spotless white, with matchless turbans.
SUMMIT OF PIETER BOTTE MOUNTAIN. 2,676 FEET HIGH.
“The luxury, the silent evidence of wealth and prosperity which one sees everywhere, is very great in contrast with poor little Natal. The office of the agent of the ship is as grand a building as the D’Urban court-house, and far more luxuriously fitted up, punkahs playing all day, and diffusing a cooling breeze. Nobody thinks of walking; in cabs and carriages by hundreds the black and white are all riding. It is rather curious to see the old chimney pot again; it seems the correct thing here for ‘dress,’ that is the band and the park after the sea breeze sets in, say at 5 P. M. I went this afternoon to the people’s park to see the menagerie. They possess some splendid lions, tigers, jackals, monkeys, etc., but I could not stop to hear the band, as my time was limited.
“The collector of customs and the port doctor are coming off to-morrow morning at 7 o’clock to pass the coolies. I expect the captain will want me to go with him to Calcutta.
Off Saugor Light-house, River Hooghly, April 21st, 1871.
“My Dear ——: I hope you have received a note informing you of my coming on here from Madras. I will now endeavor to follow my own footsteps over again on paper. On the Tuesday morning I landed at Madras. It is a large city, built right on the sea-beach, facing the rolling surf; it seems a mystery that anybody should ever have thought of founding a city on such a site, but in the days when the old East India Company was merely a mercantile, cotton buying and speculating firm, before it thought, by mixing itself in native broils, to increase its power, this was done, as much, no doubt as anything for the purpose of opposing some of the aggressions which the French at Pondicherry, some sixty miles to the south, were then making, for the French taught us the plan of ‘protecting’ the natives. It was entirely in this Presidency that Lord Clive, from being a mere clerk, achieved his early renown, and managed before he was twenty-seven to retire on £40,000 a year.
“Well, the town and suburbs extend some four or five miles along the beach. Talk about hardening the D’Urban streets, but to harden these must have cost a mint of money. They are all around for miles as level as a billiard table, or if you would prefer the simile, as flat as a grave-stone—the game, you know, gets finished at both places! The merchants’ offices, post-office, telegraph office, Supreme Court, are all near the pier, and to the rear and southward of these is the native town. These public buildings are all fine ones, though the dust and glare give the outside of them a parched appearance; inside, however, they are got up ‘regardless of expense.’ Comfort must be thought of in this climate. Further still to the south, say a mile, is Fort St. George. This is the first fort I have been in, and it seemed to my inexperienced eye to be impregnable, bastion on bastion, fosse on fosse. The fort is lit with gas, and inside, which comprises, I should imagine, some thousands of acres, there are the government buildings, mint, soldiers’ quarters and arsenal. Here during the mutiny came all the white people and the Eurasians, as they call half-castes. There is also an American Ice Co., with a magnificent ice-house some 200 feet high.