My First Voyage to Southern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

A large portion of the southern province is covered with palm-trees; the centre is a mountainous region, with magnificent scenery, crowned by the lofty summit of Adam’s Peak; while the low lands, where cultivation does not extend, are overgrown with dense masses of forest and impenetrable jungle. This is the condition of the northern and a large portion of the eastern province. Kandy, the capital, is situated in the central province, and in the high lands. In the northern part of it are to be found the newly-established coffee-plantations, which promise to be a source of great wealth to the country.

The country is indebted to Sir Edward Barnes and to Major Skinner for the fine roads which have been constructed in every direction, and have so much tended to civilise the people, to open up its resources, and thus to add to its material wealth, while they have enabled the British with much less difficulty to maintain their authority over it. From the lofty mountains in the centre numerous rivers and streams flow down, and thoroughly irrigate the greater part of this lovely island: indeed, it may well be looked on as the Paradise of the East; for though, in the low country, the climate is relaxing and enervating to European constitutions, in the higher regions the air is bracing and exhilarating in the extreme.

Next to the cocoa-nut and palm-trees, the chief vegetable production of Ceylon is cinnamon, which grows both wild and cultivated wherever there is sufficient moisture for its nourishment. Bread-fruit and jack-fruit trees grow in large quantities, so does cotton, the coffee-tree, the sugar-cane, and tobacco. Rice, cardamom, and the areca-nut are also produced, while the Palmyra palm, teak, and numerous other woods valuable for cabinet-making, grow in profusion.

With regard to wild beasts, in no part of the world are elephants finer or more numerous; tigers are very formidable and destructive. There are savage wild boars, buffaloes, and elks of great size, besides other sorts of deer; snakes are numerous, and some of them of great size, and wild peacocks and other game are to be found in abundance in the higher country.

The aborigines of Ceylon are supposed to have been of the same race as the people of Dekkan. They were demon and snake worshippers, and very barbarous. In the sixth century B.C. they were conquered by Wijayo, a native of India, who first introduced Buddhism among them, which religion was afterwards established by his successors. From the vast ruins and other gigantic works which are found scattered over the country, there can be no doubt that Ceylon was for long inhabited by a civilised and highly intelligent people.

Marco Polo visited it in the thirteenth century, and described it as the finest country in the world. In A.D. 1505 the Portuguese, having doubled the Cape of Good Hope, arrived there, and found the country in a declining state, owing to intestine wars and the invasion of foreign enemies. The Singhalese king besought their assistance, which having afforded, they began in 1518 to fortify themselves in Colombo and Galle, and finally possessed themselves of the greater part of the sea-coast, shutting up the King of Kandy in the interior. In 1632 the Dutch, uniting with the King of Kandy, in their turn drove them out and held the country, though engaged in constant hostilities with the natives till 1796, when the British (Holland having fallen into the power of France) took possession of Colombo, Galle, Trincomalee, and other towns on the coast. We, however, became involved, as had our predecessors, in hostilities with the King of Kandy, and this led to the capture of his capital in 1803. We, however, allowed the king to retain nominal possession of his capital till 1815, when, in consequence of his repeated acts of cruelty, the chiefs invited us to depose him, and the whole island has ever since been under British sway, except during a serious insurrection which lasted from 1817 to 1819, and various other less important attempts at insurrection which have happily without difficulty been quelled.

Such was a rapid sketch Mr Fordyce one day gave me of the country at large. He remarked, however, that in his mind an especial interest is attached to Galle. He considered it the most ancient emporium of trade existing in the world, for it was resorted to by merchant-ships at the earliest dawn of commerce. It was the “Kalah” at which the Arabians, in the reign of the great Haroun Al-Raschid, met the trading junks of the people of the Celestial Empire, and returned with their spices, gems, and silks to Bassora. It was visited by the Greeks and Romans, and by the mariners of Egypt under the Ptolemies. But still more interesting is it from its being in all probability the Tarshish visited by the ships of Solomon. They were built, we are told, at Ezion-geber, on the shores of the Red Sea. The rowers coasted along the shores of Arabia and the Persian Gulf, headed by an east wind. Tarshish, the port to which they were bound, was in an island governed by kings, and carrying on an extensive foreign trade. The voyage occupied three years in going and returning, and the cargoes brought home consisted of gold and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. Ophir is supposed to have been Malacca, whence ships brought gold to Tarshish. The sacred books of the Singhalese are even now inscribed on silver plates, particularised by Jeremiah as an export of Tarshish. Apes and pea-fowls are still found in great numbers, while ivory must at that time have been even more abundant than at present.

“Hurrah! old fellow,” shouted Nowell one day, rushing into my room, where he found me just as I had returned from my morning ride, and was preparing for breakfast, “I have got my leave, and we are to be off to-morrow morning. Are you ready?”

“Of course I am, and could start this moment,” I answered. “All right,” said he. “We are to go as far as Kandy in a carriage, I find. It will not be so romantic, but far more comfortable in the hot weather. After that we shall get horses and tents, and then our fun will begin, I hope.”

Great was my pleasure to find that Mr Fordyce was going with us through Kandy to Neura-Ellia, a station established as a sanatarium, 6000 feet above the sea. The next morning we found ourselves seated in a primitive-looking vehicle, denominated a mail coach, which ran daily between Galle and Colombo. Nothing could be more beautiful than the road. We were literally travelling under an avenue, seventy miles long, of majestic palm-trees, with an undergrowth of tropical shrubs bearing flowers of the most gorgeous hues, and orchids and climbers hanging in graceful wreaths to all the branches. Birds of the gayest plumage, gaudy butterflies, and insects with wings of metallic lustre, were seen glancing in and out among the trees, while lizards of various hues ran along the road, all adding to the brilliancy of the scene. Whenever there was an opening, on the right side could be seen the white cottages of the natives amid their gardens of cocoa-nuts and plantains, with the purple mountains beyond, and that mysterious Peak of Adam in the distance; while on the left glittered the blue sea, studded with islets, round which were dancing masses of white foam; the yellow beach, approached almost to the water’s edge by the green fields and tall palms, while here and there bold headlands rise up and form sheltering bays to the fishermen, whose primitive craft we could see moving along the shore.