The weird shadows of the cocoanut trees fell softly on the white road. The native huts we passed were dark and silent. The natives, one and all, had eaten their evening rice, and gone to sleep. The Cingalese have not learned that it is sometimes economy to burn night oil. In their cities, torches of splintered wood sometimes help them to lengthen their day’s work; but in the country they go to bed with the birds.
I looked behind me, to impress my memory with the outlines of some unusually peculiar hut. Andrew was clinging to the back of the gharri with the sais.
As we neared Colombo, we drove through unbroken miles of pungent cinnamon groves. The moonlight was vivid. We were content and silent.
Colombo was wide awake. The officers’ mess was aflame with light. Government House showed a hundred lights through the mass of surrounding shrubberies.
“What a perfect night it is!” said one of us.
“What a perfect day it has been!” sighed the other.
“We will try to go to Mount Lavinia again before we leave,” said my companion.
“I wonder if the children have been good,” said I, as we drew up at our hotel door.
CHAPTER IV
MY FIRST ’RICKSHAW RIDE