gles and forests are to
be found in a primeval state, full of wild beasts of every description.
The island is about 270 miles long and 145 wide. It is divided into
five provinces--Central, Southern, Eastern, Western, and Northern.

A large portion of the southern province is covered with palm-trees; the
centre is a mountainous region, with magnificent scenery, crowned by the
lofty summit of Adam's Peak; while the low lands, where cultivation does
not extend, are overgrown with dense masses of forest and impenetrable
jungle. This is the condition of the northern and a large portion of
the eastern province. Kandy, the capital, is situated in the central
province, and in the high lands. In the northern part of it are to be
found the newly-established coffee-plantations, which promise to be a
source of great wealth to the country.

The country is indebted to Sir Edward Barnes and to Major Skinner for
the fine roads which have been constructed in every direction, and have
so much tended to civilise the people, to open up its resources, and
thus to add to its material wealth, while they have enabled the British
with much less difficulty to maintain their authority over it. From the
lofty mountains in the centre numerous rivers and streams flow down, and
thoroughly irrigate the greater part of this lovely island: indeed, it
may well be looked on as the Paradise of the East; for though, in the
low country, the climate is relaxing and enervating to European
constitutions, in the higher regions the air is bracing and exhilarating
in the extreme.

Next to the cocoa-nut and palm-trees, the chief vegetable production of
Ceylon is cinnamon, which grows both wild and cultivated wherever there
is sufficient moisture for its nourishment. Bread-fruit and jack-fruit
trees grow in large quantities, so does cotton, the coffee-tree, the
sugar-cane, and tobacco. Rice, cardamom, and the areca-nut are also
produced, while the Palmyra palm, teak, and numerous other woods
valuable for cabinet-making, grow in profusion.

With regard to wild beasts, in no part of the world are elephants finer
or more numerous; tigers are very formidable and destructive. There are
savage wild boars, buffaloes, and elks of great size, besides other
sorts of deer; snakes are numerous, and some of them of great size, and
wild peacocks and other game are to be found in abundance in the higher
country.

The aborigines of Ceylon are supposed to have been of t