CHAPTER XIV.

NEWAVA ELIYA.

NEWAVA ELIYA, CEYLON, Dec. 20, 1889.

This is the sanitarium of Ceylon, 133 miles from Colombo and 6,200 feet above the sea level; a cool and delightful valley of a thousand acres or so, surrounded by high mountains, with a lake in the middle,--a very ideal place for a sanitarium. The thermometer averages seventy degrees.

We left Colombo at 9 A.M. on the 19th instant, in a first-class car engaged for the party, and passed over a six-feet-gauge road, built in the most substantial manner, with an extra guard-rail in dangerous places. There were iron bridges and stone depots at various points, each depot surrounded by a beautiful and well-kept flower-garden.

For the first fifty miles the road passed through a flat country of beautiful fields and cocoa-nut trees, and then we commenced to go up and around high mountains, the building of the road being a great engineering triumph. The road was lined on both sides for a long distance with a hedge of the large-leafed spiked aloe, from five to six feet high, and impenetrable by man or beast, and then we began to see tropical vegetation in all its luxuriant growth. Along the sides of the road and far as the eye could see were the blooming lantana, the sun-flower, and many large trees covered with yellow, white, and red flowers in great profusion. For the first time we saw tea, coffee, and cinchona plantations, the mountains being often covered to their tops with tea-plants, sturdy bushes about two feet high, and I should say that from the time we commenced to see them there were many thousand acres.

From time to time we could see the natives in parties of fifty or more picking the leaves and putting them into large baskets and carrying them on their heads to the dry-houses, or depots, and very picturesque they looked in their petticoats of many colors, their bare backs glistening in the sun. The natives have on petticoats when they wear any thing. Generally they are bare-headed, but sometimes sport gay-colored turbans. They are a fine race--bright, sharp, intelligent, cleanly, good-natured, and temperate. The women are handsome, and wear silver ornaments in their noses and ears.

The hotel here is an old vice-regal bungalow, and is like a private house. After getting warmed by a wood fire I retired and slept well all night. In the morning, before breakfast, I walked out to the woods to see the monkeys, but they did not appear, and I did not dare to go far from the trodden path on account of the cobras, which abound in these parts. After breakfast we took carriages down the mountain for five miles, over as fine a road as any in Europe, to the depot, and to our car, which had been retained for us, and soon we were on our way to Kandy, our next stopping-place.

A missionary accompanied us down the mountains, who had been twenty-seven years in the country, and entertained us with tales of snakes and elephants, and some account of his work in India and Ceylon. Coffee is no longer produced in Ceylon, the trees having been destroyed a dozen years ago by an insect, but an immense quantity of tea is grown, pronounced to be the finest in the world, and which is largely taking the place of that raised in China and India.

At 5 P.M. we reached Kandy, the ancient capital of Ceylon, containing 14,000 population,--a fine city, with many large buildings. There is a lake in the centre one and a half miles in circumference. In the evening we visited a large Buddhist temple, erected to hold a tooth of Buddha, which the faithful regard as a sacred relic.

On the 21st we took carriages to the government botanical gardens, said to be the finest in the world, and of course nothing like them is possible anywhere, except in the tropics. We saw giant palms twelve feet in diameter, stood beneath the deadly upas tree and the mahogany, jujube, almond, nutmeg, clove, mango, ebony, and a great grove of immense rubber-trees, and saw an immense variety of bright-colored flowers and leaves. The gardens cover one hundred and eighty acres, and we spent two delightful hours there, after which we drove around the city and through the extensive park of the Governor: returning, we took the train at 3 P.M. and arrived at our hotel in Colombo at seven, just in season to enjoy the excellent dinner awaiting us.