SALLE FACE ESPLANADE AND COLOMBO CLUB

CHAPTER IX.

ATTRACTIONS OFFERED BY CEYLON
TO YISITORS.

ry

he Hon. Mr. J. FERGUSON, C.M.G., F.R.C.L, Editor of the ‘ Ceylon
Observer” and Official Visitor to the Ceylon Court.

speaking of attractions it is well to begin with
the opening sentence in Sir Emerson Tennent’s
monumental work on the Island: “Ceylon,
from whatever direction it be approached,
anfolds a scene of loveliness and grandeur
ansurpassed, if it be rivalled, by any land in
the universe.” The visitor is “entranced by the vision of
beauty which expands before him as the Island rises from
the sex, its lofty mountains covered by luxuriant forests,and
its shores, till they meet the ripple of the waves, bright with
the foliage of perpetual spring.” Sir Charles Dilke—who, as
a young man, went round the world and wrote Greater
Britain” —confessed that only in the mountains of New Zealand
 had he seen scenery to approach that of the hill-country of
Ceslon. Haeckel, the German philosopher, during a stay of
some months, expressed himself in rapturous terms about the
low-country and the sea coast; and the present Lieutenant-Governor
 of the Colony, with prolonged experience of the
West Indies and South America, confesses he has seen
nothing to approach the outlook from the railway incline
between Colombo and Kandy.

SI