onths; consequently labour is very cheap this year in
the coffee plantations.

The instant we anchored we were of course surrounded by boats selling
every possible commodity and curiosity, carved ebony, ivory,
sandal-wood, and models of the curious boats in use here. These boats
are very long and narrow, with an enormous outrigger and large sail,
and when it is very rough, nearly the whole of the crew of the boat go
out one by one, and sit on the outrigger to keep it in the water, from
which springs the Cingalese saying, 'One man, two men, four men
breeze.' The heat was intense, though there was a pleasant breeze
under the awning on deck; we therefore amused ourselves by looking
over the side and bargaining with the natives, until our letters,
which we had sent for, arrived. About one o'clock we went ashore,
encountering on our way some exceedingly dreadful smells, wafted from
ships laden with guano, bones, and other odoriferous cargoes. The
inner boat harbour is unsavoury and unwholesome to the last degree,
and is just now crowded with many natives of various castes from the
south of India.

Colombo is rather a European-looking town, with fine buildings and
many open green spaces, where there were actually soldiers playing
cricket, with great energy, under the fierce rays of the midday sun.
We went at once to an hotel and rested; loitering after tiffin in the
verandah, which was as usual crowded with sellers of all sorts of
Indian things. Most of the day was spent in driving about, and having
made our arrangements for an early start to-morrow, we then walked
down to the harbour, getting drenched on our way by a tremendous
thunderstorm.

_Saturday, March 31st_.--Up early, and after rather a scramble we went
ashore at seven o'clock, just in time to start by the first train to
Kandy. There was not much time to spare, and we therefore had to pay
sovereigns for our tickets instead of changing them for rupees,
thereby receiving only ten instead of eleven and a half, the current
rate of exchange that day. It seemed rather sharp practice on the part
of the railway company (_alias_ the Government) to take sovereigns in
at the window at ten rupees, and sell them at the door for eleven and
a half, to speculators waiting ready and eager to clutch and sell them
again at an infinitesimally small profit.

The line to Kandy is always described as one of the most beautiful
railways in the world, and it certainly deserves the chara