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.