There are several resting-places on the road. We remained longest at Caltura—considered, from its position on a height facing the sea breeze, one of the most healthy places in Ceylon. The scenery in the neighbourhood is also magnificent. From the extent of the cocoa-nut groves, arrack is here largely distilled. The toddy or juice is drawn from the trees into bowls suspended to catch it, and numbers of the great bat Pteropus, called by Europeans the flying-fox, come and drink from them. They begin quietly enough, but by degrees the toddy takes effect, and, like human beings, they break into quarrels, and continue increasing their noise till it becomes most uproarious.
Having been ferried across several rivers, we reached Colombo in about twelve hours after leaving Galle.
Colombo is not an interesting place. It is on a level, strongly fortified, and has a lake in the rear, from which the inhabitants are nightly serenaded by huge frogs and mosquitoes, and tormented in the day by numberless flies. The European merchants, therefore, have their houses chiefly in the neighbourhood shaded by palm-trees among the cinnamon plantations. We spent but a day here, while, with Mr Fordyce’s assistance, I made inquiries for my grandfather and Alfred, but could gain no information on which I could in any way rely. We again, therefore, continued our journey in the same way to Kandy.
Chapter Eleven.
My New Friends—Journey to the Capital—Kandy—Fine Roads—Magnificent Scenery—Coffee Plantation—Mountain Travelling—Keura-Ellia—Its refreshing Coolness—My First Buffalo Hunt—Unpleasant Consequences—Solon to the Rescue.
Were I to describe all the wonderful and curious things I saw and heard of in Ceylon, I should very soon fill my pages. After leaving the sea the palm trees soon disappeared, and we were surrounded by the graceful arecas, mixed with the kitool or jaggery palm, and numberless flowering trees and shrubs, the murutu with its profusion of lilac blossoms, and the gorgeous imbul or cotton-tree covered with crimson flowers. We passed thousands of bullock carts bringing down coffee from the estates in the interior, and carrying up rice and other provisions and articles required on them. They are small, dark-coloured, graceful little animals, with humps on their backs, and legs as slender as those of a deer. The carts they draw are called bandys. They are rough two-wheeled vehicles, with a covering of plaited cocoa-nut leaves.
We were now gradually ascending, the cottages of the natives being surrounded by coffee bushes, with their polished green leaves and wreaths of jessamine-like flowers, instead of palm-trees as in the low country. The latter part of the road wag most magnificent, combining the grandeur of the Alps with the splendour of tropical vegetation.
“Some Kandyan prophet had foretold,” Mr Fordyce informed me, “that the kingdom of Kandy would come to an end when a bullock should be driven through a certain hill, and a man on horseback should pass through a rock.”