from Dr. Almquist, sketching his journey to the
interior of the island may be instructive:--

"Three hours after our arrival at Point de Galle I sat
properly stowed away in the mail-coach _en route_ for
Colombo. As travelling companions I had a European and two
Singhalese. As it was already pretty dusk in the evening
there was not much of the surrounding landscape visible. We
went on the whole night through a forest of tall coco-nut
trees whose dark tops were visible far up in the air
against the somewhat lighter sky. It was peculiar to see
the number of fire-flies flying in every direction, and at
every wing-stroke emiting a bright flash. The night air had
the warm moistness which is so agreeable in the tropics.
Now and then the sound of the sea penetrated to our ears.
For we followed the west coast in a northerly direction.
More could not be observed in the course of the night, and
all the passengers were soon sunk in deep sleep.

"After seven hours' brisk trot we came to a railway station
and continued our journey by rail to Colombo, the capital
of Ceylon. As there was nothing special to see or do there,
I went on without stopping by the railway, which here bends
from the coast to Kandy and other places. The landscape now
soon became grander and grander. We had indeed before seen
tropical vegetation at several places, but of the
luxuriance which here struck the eye we had no conception.
The pity was that men had come hither, had cleared and
planted.

"In the lowlands I saw some cinnamon plantations. Ceylon
cinnamon is very dear; in Europe cheaper and inferior sorts
are used almost exclusively, and most of the plantations in
Ceylon have been abandoned many years ago. Soon the train
leaves the lowland and begins to ascend rapidly. The patch
of coast country, where the coco-nut trees prevail, is
exchanged for a very mountainous landscape; first hills
with large open valleys between, then higher continuous
mountains with narrow, deep, kettle-like valleys, or open
hilly plateaus. In the valleys rice is principally
cultivated. The hills and mountain sides were probably
originally covered with the most luxuriant primitive
forest, but now on all the slopes up to the mountain
summits it is cut down, and they are covered with coffee
plantations. The coffee-plant