s were most
comfortable, and the baths delicious. After dinner we all adjourned
once more to the verandah to watch the dancing fireflies, the
lightning, and the heavy thunderclouds, and enjoy the cool evening
breeze. You in England who have never been in the tropics cannot
appreciate the intense delight of that sensation. Then we went to bed,
and passed a most luxurious night of cool and comfortable sleep, not
tossing restlessly about, as we had been doing for some time past.

_Sunday, April 1st_.--I awoke before daylight. Our bed faced the
windows, which were wide open, without blinds, curtains, or shutters,
and I lay and watched the light gradually creeping over the trees,
landscape, and garden, and the sun rising glorious from behind the
distant mountains, shining brightly into the garden, drawing out a
thousand fresh fragrances from every leaf and flower.

By seven o'clock we found ourselves enjoying an early tea within the
pretty bungalow in the centre of the Botanic Gardens, and thoroughly
appreciating delicious fresh butter and cream, the first we have
tasted for ages. We went for the most delightful stroll afterwards,
and saw for the first time many botanical curiosities, and several
familiar old friends growing in greater luxuriance than our eyes are
even yet accustomed to. The groups of palms were most beautiful. I
never saw anything finer than the tallipot-palm, and the areca, with
the beetle-vine climbing round it; besides splendid specimens of the
kitool or jaggery-palm. Then there was the palmyra, which to the
inhabitant of the North of Ceylon is what the cocoa-nut is to the
inhabitant of the South--food, clothing, and lodging. The
pitcher-plants and the rare scarlet amherstia looked lovely, as did
also the great groups of yellow and green stemmed bamboos. There were
magnolias, shaddocks, hibiscus, the almost too fragrant
yellow-flowered champac, sacred to Hindoo mythology; nutmeg and
cinnamon trees, tea and coffee, and every other conceivable plant and
tree, growing in the wildest luxuriance. Through the centre of the
gardens flows the river Ambang Ganga, and the whole 140 acres are laid
out so like an English park that, were it not for the unfamiliar
foliage, you might fancy yourself at home.

We drove back to our host's to breakfast, and directly afterwards
started in two carriages to go to church at Kandy. The church is a
fine large building, lofty, and cool, and well ventilated. This being
Easter