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Updated: June 19, 2025
After staying there a few days I set out for Kandy, the old capital; held on to Newera Ellia, the sanatorium of the island, lying under Pedro Talla Galla, its highest mountain; ascended the mountain, made my way back by another route to Kandy, and then proceeded to Galle, where I was happy to meet my wife and child, with whom I went on to Calcutta.
As I travelled from Kandy to Newera Ellia, and back again to Kandy by a different route, my impression of the picturesqueness and productiveness of the country was confirmed. There was one thing I did not see the blooming heather of my own Highlands. There is, I suppose, no country where all that is desirable can be obtained. It must be acknowledged Ceylon has its disadvantages.
Equally infamous it was, that summary chastisement was not inflicted upon the perfidious court of Kandy.
Six miles from here is an interesting hill garden, designed to supplement that already described near Kandy, and which is under the same able management. Flowers do not receive much attention in either of these conservatories, useful and remarkable trees taking precedence of all other forms of vegetation.
The duke and duchess, as it was they who had made the experiment of this adventure, were ready to burst with laughter at all this, and between themselves they commended the clever acting of the Trifaldi, who, returning to her seat, said, "Queen Dona Maguncia reigned over the famous kingdom of Kandy, which lies between the great Trapobana and the Southern Sea, two leagues beyond Cape Comorin.
She was absent from England five months, three of which were passed in the neighborhood of and at Colombo, Point de Galle, and Kandy. Our informant said that the lady not only added vastly to her own priceless collection, but she realized from those she sold to others a sufficient sum to pay the expense of her visit to Ceylon.
One evening, whilst riding in the vicinity of Kandy, towards the scene of the massacre of Major Davie's party in 1803, my horse evinced some excitement at a noise which approached us in the thick jungle, and which consisted of a repetition of the ejaculation urmph! urmph! in a hoarse and dissatisfied tone.
Kandy, once royal city, knows the abhorred low caste to-day as it did five hundred years ago, for in plain view of the capital in the hills there are settlements of men and women still excluded from communion with the world by reason of a royal curse pronounced centuries ago and it is a condition worse than death itself.
Since the capture of Kandy in 1815 there have been three rebellious uprisings of the natives, the last of which occurred in 1847, which the English officials stamped out with such rigor, not to say cruelty, that it has so far proved the last attempt of the sort.
This being the fact, no visitor to the town where the Planters' Association has its administrative machinery can close his ears to tea talk. Elsewhere people talk over their tea-cups; in Kandy, they talk tea over every other kind of cup. Kandy's big hotel bristles with planters in overspreading sun hats, as do club and friendly bungalow verandas.
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