Across India Part 36

He then ordered the driver to convey his fare to the Royal Hotel, in a very peremptory manner, and the man obeyed. Thanking the gentleman for his kindness, they parted. The cartman was in a hurry now, and he urged his humpbacked bullocks into a lively trot.

At the door the boys gave the driver two rupees, and the fellow salaamed as though he had received a guinea. There are plenty of landaus in Madras at three rupees a day; and the dak, as the cart is called, and palanquins are becoming things of the past. Tiffin was ready; and a line of carriages was at the door waiting for the tourists when they had disposed of the lunch, and they seated themselves for a drive.

"I warn you," said Sir Modava, as the carriages drove off, "that you will find little here to interest you, after visiting, as you have, the princ.i.p.al cities of India."

"We are about tired of sight-seeing," added Mrs. Belgrave rather languidly; and this was about the situation of most of the party.

They pa.s.sed the People's Park, an inviting enclosure, with ponds and pleasant walks, to the Black Town, which contains the homes of the natives, though there are plenty of shops; and it is crossed by several good avenues. They came to a street like that called The Strand in Calcutta, and they drove the whole length of it. They pa.s.sed into Fort St. George, which seemed to be a city of itself. Leaving it, they crossed the little river that meanders through the town, and flows into the ocean at this point.

On this sh.o.r.e road were the princ.i.p.al public buildings of the city, and near the end of it was St. Thomas's Cathedral. This is said to be the site where the apostle of this name, "Doubting Thomas," was martyred. Early tradition buried him in Edessa, in Mesopotamia, but a later account sent him to India; but this is something for learned doctors to discuss. At St.

George's Cathedral the party entered to see the statue, made by Chantrey, of Bishop Heber, who looks gently and tenderly upon a native convert at his feet.

They rode all over the town, and found several ponds, called tanks; and the great fort is washed on one side by the river. The second day the party were driven into the suburbs. At a rocky point on the river they found a party of half-naked men was.h.i.+ng sheets and pillow-cases. The ladies were interested, and the carriages stopped to enable them to see the operation.

They had something like washboards, laid on the bank of the stream, which they were hammering with all their might with the sheets, standing in the shallow water as they did so. Mrs. Blossom declared they must tear them all to pieces, and she was quite indignant at the way it was done.

Another day finished Madras; and, though there was little to see, compared with the places they had visited before, Mrs. Belgrave declared they had had a good time. On the morning following they went on board of the Guardian-Mother, and she sailed for Ceylon.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE FAREWELL TO CEYLON AND INDIA

If the tourists had been in a safe place they would have been glad to see a cyclone on the sh.o.r.e of Madras, on Napier bridge for instance; and it would have been a grand spectacle to observe the great billows rolling in on the beach, breaking at a distance of a thousand feet from the land. But they had all seen great waves, and they were not anxious to see them here. At her ordinary speed, the Guardian-Mother would arrive at Colombo at one o'clock the next day. The weather was fine, and the pa.s.sengers a.s.sembled in Conference Hall to talk with the three experts on board about the various places they had visited in India.

Lord Tremlyn and Sir Modava were full of information, which they adorned with stories from history and mythology. The good people from Von Blonk Park were sorry they had not seen the Temple and Car of Juggernaut, though they had been fully described to them. They had visited the missions in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, as well as wherever they had found them elsewhere. They were much interested in them, and regretted that they had not been able to devote more time to them.

The next forenoon, with the northern sh.o.r.e of Ceylon in sight from the deck, Lord Tremlyn went upon the rostrum, with the map of the island, and a portion of the main sh.o.r.e included, on the frame. Though the s.h.i.+p was in ten degrees of north lat.i.tude, the weather was delightful and the sea was smooth. The thermometer stood at 70, and the ladies declared that the temperature was just right.

"You know the location of the island on the southeast of India, and it takes in about four degrees of lat.i.tude and two of longitude, without going into the matter too finely, with an area of twenty-four thousand seven hundred and two square miles; about the size of your State of West Virginia, I find, or as large as three or four of your New England States.

Perhaps the most lovely scenery in the whole world is to be found in this island. The Greeks and Romans visited it, and it is mentioned in 'The Arabian Nights,' under the name of Serendib.

"The mountains are near the southern part, and the highest one is Mount Pedrotallagalla,--don't forget the name, my young friends,--eight thousand two hundred and sixty feet high. In your visit to Ceylon you will go to Candy, which will please those with a sweet tooth better than Kandy, as it is often spelled. Many precious stones are found in Ceylon; and the pearl fishery is a very important source of wealth, though its value is variable in different years. In six years only out of the last thirty have the fisheries been productive, and in the other twenty-four they yielded hardly anything. In those six years, the largest yield, in 1881, was not quite sixty thousand pounds, while the smallest noted was ten thousand pounds.

"The fisheries are under government regulation. An official announces when the work is permitted, and then it lasts only from four to six weeks.

Thirteen men and ten divers are generally the crew of each boat, five of the latter going down into the water while the other five rest. Each diver has a stone, weighing forty pounds, attached to a line long enough to reach the bottom, with a loop near the weight, into which he puts his foot. The water varies in depth from fifty-four to seventy-eight feet. They work quickly; for a minute is the usual time they remain in the water, though some can stand it twenty seconds longer.

"One would suppose that the sharks, which abound in these waters, would make it dangerous business; but very few accidents occur, for the commotion about the boats seems to scare them away. When the diver gives the signal he is hauled up, with his bag of oysters, as rapidly as possible. But the ladies know more about pearls than I do, and I will say no more about them.

"There are many rivers in Ceylon, rising in the high land, and flowing into the sea; but none of them are as long as the Mississippi. The climate of the island is simply magnificent; the average heat in Colombo on the high lands never exceeds 70. I shall permit you to describe the flowers after you have seen them; but the vegetation generally of the island is exceedingly luxuriant. In regard to animals, the tiger does not reside in Ceylon. The elephant, generally without any tusks, is the chief ruler in the forests here. The bear and the leopard are found. There is no end of monkeys. There are sixteen kinds of bats here, and all your base-ball clubs could be supplied from the stock; and there is a flying fox, which might amuse you if you could catch one. He is a sort of bat; and the more of them you shoot, the better the farmer will be pleased, for they feed on his fruit. Plenty of birds of all sorts are found in the island. The crocodile is the biggest reptile found in Ceylon."

"But the snakes, your lords.h.i.+p?" suggested Felix.

"There are a few poisonous snakes; and the two worst are the cobra and the ticpolonga, the latter a sort of viper; and the former is an old friend of yours, Mr. McGavonty. The people are called Singhalese, but more generally Cingalese, and are believed to be the descendants of immigrants from the region of the Ganges. There are other races here, as the Malabars. The religion of Ceylon is the Buddhist, and it has a very strong hold upon the natives here as well as in Burma.

"Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, is said to have visited Ceylon three times, and to have preached his doctrines here. His sacred footstep on Adam's Peak, 7,420 feet high, the second highest elevation in the island, is still adored by the people. But the most sacred relic here is the tooth of Gautama, kept in an elegant shrine and carefully guarded at Candy. But it is said to be well known that the Portuguese destroyed the original; and the subst.i.tute is a discolored bit of ivory, without the least resemblance to a human tooth. There are many temples, sacred caverns, some of them sculptured like those near Bombay.

"There is something like ancient history in connection with Ceylon, dating back to 543 B.C.; but it would be hardly edifying to follow it. It has also a Portuguese, a Dutch, and a British period; and it was finally annexed to the British crown by the Treaty of Amiens, in 1802.

"Thirty years ago coffee was the princ.i.p.al commercial production of the island; but a kind of fungus attacked the leaves of the trees, and within ten years the planters were obliged to abandon its cultivation to a great extent, though it is still raised. 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.

"It has become evident in very recent years that Ceylon might become a great tea-growing region, and the planters are now largely engaged in its culture. A dozen years ago only 3,515 pounds were raised; ten years later over 12,000,000 pounds of tea was the crop; and this year it is still greater. The population in 1891 was 3,008,466. It has a governor, who rules with an executive council of five, of which the officer in command of the troops is one."

"Can your lords.h.i.+p tell me the salary of the governor-general of India?"

asked Captain Ringgold.

"I figured it up at one time in your money, and forgot to mention it. If I remember rightly, it was $125,400; and that of the governor of Ceylon is $20,000," replied Lord Tremlyn. "The former gets two and a half times the salary of your President. I have nothing more to say of the island, but after a concert by the band, Sir Modava will tell you something about the princ.i.p.al towns;" and as he retired the audience separated, for it was to be a promenade concert.

"I was asked just now by Mrs. Blossom about missions here in Ceylon," said the Hindu gentleman as he took the stand. "The English Baptists sent missionaries here eighty years ago; the Methodists a year later; the Americans three years later; and the Church of England five years after. A great deal of Christian teaching has been done in Ceylon, though I am not able just now to give you statistically the results of missionary work; but it has included the establishment of schools, female seminaries, and even collegiate inst.i.tutions, carried on by the missionaries, outside of the government system of education.

"Point de Galle, at the south-western extremity of the island, is a town of forty-seven thousand inhabitants, and has a good harbor in a sheltered bay.

It was formerly the princ.i.p.al coaling and s.h.i.+pping station in this part of India; but all this has gone to Colombo. The Orient line of steamers, whose princ.i.p.al business is with Australia, sends some of its s.h.i.+ps here; and most steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental line, called the 'P. & O.' for short, touch here. A great deal of freight had to be res.h.i.+pped at Point de Galle for various ports of India.

"The name was given to the place by the Portuguese, and its meaning is doubtful. _Galles_ is the French of Wales, and _La Nouvelle Galles_ is New South Wales; without the final _s_, the word means an oak-apple, in French. As I heard one of the 'Big Four' say this morning, 'You pay your money and take your choice,' as to the signification of the word. At any rate, the importance of the place is gone, and Colombo has captured its business and its prominence.

"Colombo is the capital of Ceylon. It is about seventy miles from Point de Galle, on the south-west coast of the island. It has a population of almost 127,000, which has been increased at the expense of Galle, as we generally call it to economize our breath. It is located on a peninsula, with the sea on three sides of it, with a lake and moat on the land side. By the way, Mr. Woolridge, do you happen to remember the Italian name of Christopher Columbus, whose discovery of America you are to celebrate at Chicago this year?"

"Cristoforo Colombo," replied Morris promptly. "I read it on his monument at Genoa last summer."

"Quite right, my young friend; and that is where the capital of Ceylon obtained its name, which the Portuguese gave it, in honor of the great discoverer, only twenty-five years after the great event of his life. The buildings are about the same as you will observe in all British colonial towns, and I need not mention them. You will ride out to Lake Colombo, and visit the cinnamon gardens there. The breakwater, which has been the making of the city, cost 600,000; for it is an entirely safe harbor, with every facility for landing and embarking pa.s.sengers and goods. I believe nothing is left to you but to see what his lords.h.i.+p and I have described."

Sir Modava retired from the stand; and the band started into an overture, which was hardly finished before the bell for lunch sounded. Before the collation was finished the s.h.i.+p had taken a pilot, and in due time the Guardian-Mother came to anchor at her last port in India proper. As the s.h.i.+p came into the harbor she pa.s.sed abreast of the Blanche, and was greeted with three cheers, which were promptly and vigorously returned.

Accommodations had been bespoken by Lord Tremlyn, and early in the afternoon the party were quartered in the Elphinstone. Carriages were obtained, and before night they had visited the princ.i.p.al parts of the town, and even the cinnamon gardens, in which they were greatly interested; and some of the ladies told what it was good for, both as a spice and a medicine.

"I suppose you know all about cinnamon, Mrs. Belgrave," said Sir Modava, as they were looking at the trees.

"I only know enough about it to put it in my apple-pies when I make them."

"This island produces the finest article in the world. It is a very old spice, mentioned in the Old Testament, though I forget the name by which it is there called," added the Indian gentleman.

"But I did not suppose it grew on a tree; I had an idea it was a root."

"No; it is the inner bark of the trees before you. They are from twenty to thirty feet high, and are sometimes a foot and a half through. But the cultivated plant is not allowed to grow more than ten feet high. The leaves average five inches long, and taste more like cloves than cinnamon. There are two crops a year in Ceylon, the first in March, the last in November.

The bark is taken off with considerable labor and care, and when it dries it curls up as you find your stick cinnamon."

"I used ground cinnamon," added the lady.

"It is the same thing, pa.s.sed through the mill. Ca.s.sia is another species of cinnamon, and its oil is often subst.i.tuted for the true oil; and very likely you buy it ground for the real thing."

The experts explained some other plants, especially cinchona, one of the most valuable medicinal plants, from which Peruvian bark, quinine, and other drugs are made, in which the three doctors were much interested. The company returned to the hotel; and after dinner the Italian band gave a concert on the veranda, as they had done in every city where the tourists remained overnight, which called forth repeated rounds of applause from the citizens of Colombo.

The next morning the travellers proceeded by railroad to Kandy, which Sir Modava insisted was the right way to spell it. The route was mostly through an elevated region, and when they reached the place at noon they had attained an elevation of 1,665 feet above the sea. They remained at Kandy three days, and were sorry the commander would not allow them to stay longer, for it was the most delightful region they had yet visited. They were in sight of the lofty mountains of the island before mentioned.