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Updated: May 12, 2025
An intelligent resident of Ratnapura told the author that the presence of these gems in the earth of Ceylon, so far from being of any real advantage to the inhabitants or to the true prosperity of the island, is a source of a vast amount of evil.
Ratnapura the "City of Gems" is situated about fifty miles southeast of Colombo and twelve or fifteen miles from Adam's Peak, on the banks of the Kaluganga, a hundred and fifty feet above sea level. There is an official residence here, a small Episcopal chapel, a Roman Catholic chapel, a jail, and a hospital.
Many casual visitors to the island do this, and they are sometimes reasonably rewarded, but "big finds" do not often come to such parties. There is another famous place besides Ratnapura which produces gems. It is the flat country contiguous to Ballomgodde, fifteen miles southeast of the City of Gems.
The author recommends the ascent of Adam's Peak to any member of the Alpine Club who is ambitious to achieve a laborious climb heavenward. There are few mountains only seven thousand four hundred feet in height which present such difficulties as this, when approached from Ratnapura.
About four or five years since, as the story is told, a ruby weighing twenty-six carats was found at Ratnapura, which was valued in its uncut condition, by the London jewelers to whom it was sent, at twenty-five thousand dollars, and it is said that after it was cut it lost but little of its weight, while it gained immensely in brilliancy.
The ascent from the Maskeliya side is much easier than that known as the "Pilgrim's Path" from Ratnapura, but the latter is considered to be the proper one by which the truly devout should seek the holy spot. Upon its summit ceaseless prayers and praises have ascended for thousands of years.
The choicest uncut stones which are still to be seen in the walls of the Taj Mahal that poem in marble at Agra, India, the tomb of the wife of Emperor Shah Jehan are said to have come originally from Ratnapura. They were only crudely dressed by native skill for this purpose, but the intrinsic value is there all the same.
Besides precious stones, Ceylon produces gold, quicksilver, plumbago of the finest quality, and magnetic iron ore. Plumbago has at various times formed quite an item in the exports of the island. The supply of this article in the neighborhood of Ratnapura is practically inexhaustible. It is found in large, detached masses of fine quality, five or six feet below the surface of the ground.
Geologists tell us that the island has for ages past been slowly rising from the ocean level, and we know that well-preserved marine shells are found in masses at a considerable elevation, ten miles inland, both in the north and the south of Ceylon, and especially in the foot-hills of the central mountain, or Kandian range, as it is called, near Ratnapura.
It must be admitted that fatal accidents are frequent enough during these thunder-storms to keep an apprehension of danger constantly alive. In the mountain regions about Kandy and Ratnapura, where the echoes supplement the grand electric discharges, the deafening noise and reverberation can only be compared to the quick, sharp, detonating reports of heavy artillery.
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