Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon by Sir Samuel White Baker (english novels to read txt) 📕

brought together, a strip of the areca palm stern is laid over the joints, and holes being drilled upon each plank, the sewing is drawn tightly over the lath of palm, which being thickly smeared with a kind of pitch, keeps the seams perfectly water-tight. The native dhonies, which are vessels of a hundred and fifty tons, are all fastened in this simple and apparently fragile manner; nevertheless they are excellent sea-boats, and ride in safety through many a gale of wind. The first moving object which met my view on arrival within sight of Ceylon was an outrigger canoe, which shot past our vessels as if we had been at anchor.

The last object that my eyes rested on, as the cocoa-nut trees of Ceylon faded from sight, was again the native canoe which took the last farewell lines to those who were left behind. Upon this I gazed till it became a gray speck upon the horizon and the green shores of the Eastern paradise faded from my eyes for ever.

How little did I imagine, when these pages were commenced in Ceylon, that their conclusion would be written in England!

An unfortunate shooting trip to one of the most unhealthy parts of the country killed my old horse "Jack," one coolie, and very nearly extinguished me rendering it imperative that I should seek a change of climate in England. And what a dream-like change it is!--past events appear unreal, and the last few years seem to have escaped from the connecting chain of former life. Scarcely can I believe in the bygone days of glorious freedom, when I wandered through that beautiful country, unfettered by the laws or customs of conventional life.

The white cliffs of Old England rose hazily on the horizon, and greeted many anxious eyes as the vessel rushed proudly on with her decks thronged with a living freight, all happy as children in the thoughts of home. The sun shone brightly and gave a warm welcome on our arrival; and as the steamer moored alongside the quay, an hour sufficed to scatter the host of passengers who had so closely dwelt together, as completely as the audience of a theatre when the curtain falls. That act of life is past--"exeunt omnes," and a new scene commences. We are in England.

A sudden change necessarily induces a comparison, and I imagine there are few who have dwelt much among the Tropics who do not acquire a distaste for the English climate, and look back with lingering hopes to the verdant shores they have left so far behind. The recollection of absent years, which seem to have been the summer of life, makes the chill of the present feel doubly cold, and our thoughts still cling to the past, while we strive against the belief that we never can recall those days again.

How, as my thoughts wander back to former scenes every mountain and valley reappears in the magic glass of memory! Every rock and dell, every old twisted stem, every dark ravine and wooded cliff, the distant outlines of the well-known hills, the jungle-paths known to my eye alone, and the far, still spots where I have often sat in solitude and pondered over the events of life, and conjured up the faces of those so far away, doubtful if we should ever meet again. Thus even now I picture to myself the past; and so vivid is the scene that I can almost hear the fancied roar of the old waterfalls, and see the shadowy tints which the evening sun throws upon the tree-tops. My old home rises before me like a dissolving view, and I can see the very spot where it was my delight to live, where a warm welcome awaited every friend. And lastly, the faces of those friends seem clear before me, and bring back the associations of old times. Those who have shared in common many of these scenes I trust to meet again, and look back upon the events of former days as landscapes on the road of life that we have viewed together.

For me Ceylon has always had a charm, and I shall ever retain a vivid interest in the colony.

I trust that a new and more prosperous era has now commenced, and that Ceylon, having shaken off the incubus of mismanagement, may, under the rule of a vigorous and enterprising governor, arrive at that prosperity to which she is entitled by her capabilities.

The governor recently appointed (Sir H. Ward,) has a task before him which his well-known energy will doubtless enable him to perform.
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Publication Date: 06-23-2010

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