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Updated: June 10, 2025
Wait till this plan is tried in England and Scotland, and, above all, in unhappy Ireland! I shall never despair of Ireland until at least a generation has had such local institutions as we find in Ceylon's Isle. If that people cannot develop under self-government, they deserve to fall away and give place to a better race; but they will not fail.
One leaves Buitenzorg for Garoet as the first streak of dawn appears; as we sped along, we realized more and more what tropical vegetation and abundant rain could produce, for the vivid greens and dewy freshness of the foliage surpassed even Ceylon's landscape, which in its turn had surpassed anything before seen, even our own South and Southern California not excepted; Java is indeed the garden of the world!
Just at our breakfast hour we sighted that oriental fairy garden, Ceylon's isle; and though we must be from fifteen to twenty miles off, a curiously-constructed native vessel, with perhaps a dozen persons on board, has just put out to welcome and pilot us to land. A boat so different to all other boats that I must say a word about it.
A modern man of business might believe that Bishop Heber of Calcutta wove into irresistible verse a tremendous advertisement for Ceylon real estate, but repelled investors by a sweeping castigation of mankind, when he wrote: What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle; Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile.
'From Greenland's icy mountains to Ceylon's sunny isle, Whereever prospect pleases, And only man is vile. you shall nearly always hear the vile ones calling the humble tuber of their mid-day meal by some term akin to potato, and the subtle weed that companions their meditations, by some word like tobacco.
The railway ride there confirmed our first impression of Ceylon's fine growth of trees and shrubs, the road leading first through lowlands with endless cocoanut and other palms; while of all the blossom-laden trees the gold mohr, with its wealth of scarlet blossoms, surpasses every other. Later, rice-fields and tea plantations alternated, the latter even covering the sides of mountains.
He died at the age of 37, having been for nearly six years a successful missionary among the spicy breezes which blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle.
Ceylon's substitute for virtually everything elsewhere used in the construction of buildings is the cadjan: it is at once board, clapboard, shingle, and lath. Cadjans are plaited from the leaf of the cocoanut- or date-palm, and are usually five or six feet long and about ten inches wide; the center rib of the leaf imparts reasonable rigidity and strength.
Itself beautiful with poinsettia, bougainvillea, crotons, hibiscus and palms, a botanical garden in Kandy would seem to have no proper place. But the city possesses one that is almost unique among tropical gardens. It is in the suburb of Peradeniya, four miles out, and it is embraced on three sides by Ceylon's principal stream, the Mahavaliganga.
"Here is the verse," I said, "about your beautiful isle ": "What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle, Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile! In vain with lavish kindness, The gifts of God are strewn; The heathen, in his blindness, Bows down to wood and stone." "What do you think of that description?" I asked.
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