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It is said that the delights of pleasures in anticipation exceed the pleasures themselves: in this case doubtless some months of great enjoyment passed in making plans of every description, until I at length arrived in Colombo, Ceylon's seaport capital. I never experienced greater disappointment in an expectation than on my first view of Colombo.
"Very well; now let me go." He released her plump little hand, and Rose drew on her gloves. "Adieu, Mr. Reinecourt," moving to the door. "Au revoir, Miss Danton, until to-morrow morning." Rose rode home in delight. In one instant the world had changed. St. Croix had become a paradise, and the keen air sweet as "Ceylon's spicy breezes."
On the other hand, the island sends to Europe and America annually $21,000,000 worth of tea, besides considerable quantities of rubber, cocoanut-oil, cacao, and plumbago. Ceylon's crude rubber commands the highest price, and is a crop growing by leaps and bounds. It is estimated that eight hundred million cocoanuts are grown yearly in Ceylon. An item in the list of exports is elephants.
"Of course, where nature is more hostile to life, men will have to work longer hours to support life than where 'the spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle. But it isn't that of which I complain it is the awful sense of respectability attaching to possessions, the hideous way in which we fill our houses with things which we do not want or use, just because they are a symbol of respectability.
Ceylon's capital teems consequently with people hungry for a table d'hote meal, a 'rickshaw ride, and the indiscriminate purchase of rubbishing cats-eye and sapphire jewelry. The conglomeration of people on the promenade floor of the jetty, watching voyagers come and go, would tend to make a student of anthropology lose his mind.
As we drew nigh to Ceylon I sez to Josiah: "Did you ever expect, Josiah Allen, to feel "'The balmy breezes That blow from Ceylon's Isle Where every prospect pleases, And only man is vile?" And he sez, holdin' on his hat, "I shouldn't call these breezes very bammy, and you no need to lay such a powerful stress on man, Samantha, that term, man, means wimmen too in this case."
On receiving it he soared up into the air and flew to Rama, brandishing the box and squeezing it so hard that all the breath left the King of Ceylon's body, and he died. In a Bengalee story a prince going into a far country planted with his own hands a tree in the courtyard of his father's palace, and said to his parents, "This tree is my life.
I don't know that it will compare with the mighty growth of Ceylon's forests, or with the variety and richness of its forms; but for mellowness of tint and harmonious blending of soft foliage, Singapore's park-like views seem to me, as yet, unrivalled.
The surrounding atmosphere is very sweet and fragrant with the soft breath of buds and flowers, not belonging, however, to the cinnamon-trees. This favorite spice was the great specialty of Ceylon's products in the days of the Portuguese and the Dutch, as well as before and since their occupancy.
Cacao, which is the name of the chocolate-tree, while cocoa is the name of the product, is cultivated to a considerable extent; so are cinchona, cardamoms, and various spices; though Bishop Heber's lines 'What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle, are not applicable to the island as formerly.
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