"Kandy is quite prettily situated among the hills, and it looks as though a considerable amount of money had been spent on making it attractive. There is an artificial lake that has a road all around it where people go for their afternoon drives, and there is a small mountain just back of the town with a road winding around it, with shade-trees nearly all the way to protect you from the sun. We took a stroll there this afternoon, and found it delightful; every few hundred yards there are seats where you may sit and look at the scenery, and from some of the points you can look for miles over the lovely valleys and the hills covered with trees clear up to their summits.
"Kandy is the capital of Ceylon, and it is to this fact that it owes the great number of charming walks and drives; nearly every road and path bears the name of Lady Somebody or other, and there are so many of them that the list becomes tiresome after a while. But if the people whose names are thus preserved gave the money for making the roads and paths, I suppose we ought not to complain, as they have added very much to the attractions of Kandy. The place was favored by nature in supplying it with an abundance of tropical vegetation, and so there was an opportunity to spend money to good advantage."
[CHAPTER XIX.]
AROUND KANDY.—BOTANICAL GARDENS AND COFFEE PLANTATIONS.—ADVENTURES WITH SNAKES.
Doctor Bronson had a letter of introduction to Mr. Walker, a merchant of Kandy, and delivered it on the morning after their arrival. He was cordially welcomed by that gentleman, and invited to visit the botanical gardens as a preliminary to breakfast, and also to take the two youths on the excursion. The botanical gardens are some two miles or more from the town, and there is a good road thither which forms a pleasant drive.
On the way to the gardens Mr. Walker told the strangers something about the place they were about to visit. He said the Botanic Garden of Ceylon was first established near Colombo, in 1799, but the locality proved unsuitable, and it was moved to two or three places in succession, and finally came to Kandy about sixty years ago. It had been carefully kept, and the expenditures for it had resulted in the creation of one of the finest open-air gardens in the world.
