he 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 lordship?" 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 substitute 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 principal 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 t