16 CEYLON AND ITS ADMINISTRATION.

companies, the Peninsular and Oriental, the Orient-Pacific,
Norddeutscher Lloyd, and Messageries Maritimes, run
steamers at frequent intervals from London, Bremen,
Antwerp, Southampton, Marseilles, Genoa, and Naples. The
return fares are from London or Bremen about £80 first,
£50 second class. A very popular line is the Bibby, from
Liverpool and Marseilles (return fare, first class only, from
Liverpool £74 10s., from Marseilles £69 10s.). Other wellknown
 lines are the British India, the City, the Nippon
Yusen Kaisha or Japanese line (noted for its cheapness), and
the Austrian Lloyd, from Trieste (return fare from Trieste
£42 10s., from London, including rail vid St. Gothard, £55).
A steamer service round the Island is carried on by the
Ceylon Steamship Company, whose two vessels, the Lady
Havelock and Lady Gordon, voyage round the Island alternately
 south-about and north-about from Colombo weekly,
the first class fare round the Island being Rs. 123.
The Ceylon Railway System, which is owned and worked
by the Ceylon Government, is one of the most valuable
assets of the local exchequer, the receipts in 1902 having
been Rs. 7,975,506-31. The total mileage open is 378. The
Main Line, Colombo to Bandarawela, 160 miles in length,
riges from a few feet above the sea level at Colombo to
6,224 feet above the sea at the summit near Pattipola, 139
miles from Colombo, and thence falls to 4,036 feet above
the sea at Bandarawela. The works and inclines between
Rambukkana, 313 feet above the sea (52 miles 11 chains),
and Kadugannawa, 1,698 feet above the sea (65 miles), and
also between Nawalapitiya (87 miles), 1,913 feet above the
sea, and the terminus at Bandarawela, are of very exceptional
difficulty, magnitude, steepness, and length, and perhaps
justly entitle the railway to rank among the remarkable
railways of the world in these respects. There is no other
railway of the same gauge (5 feet 6 inches) rising to an
equal altitude above sea level, nor another instance of the
use of curves having so small a radius as 5 chains (330 feet)
with that gange.
An extension on the same gauge to the north of the Island,
198 miles, is in progress. and will vrobably be opened to
traffic in 1905.
There are branch feeder lines on a 2-feet 6-inch gauge from
Nanu-oya through Nuwara Eliya, the sanitarium of the
Island, to Ragalla, 19 miles, which rises to 7,000 feet above sea
level, and is probably one of the steepest hill lines in the
world where a cog connection is not used. The sharpest
curves are §0feet radius, and the steepest gradientis1in 2387;
and another of 48 miles from Colombo to the great Kelani