Eight Years in Ceylon

But the climate ! what can I say to describe the wonderful effects of such a pure and unpolluted air ? Simply that at the expirtion of a fortnight in spite of the tough beef and the black bread and potatoes I was as well and as strong as I ever had been ; and in proof of this I started instanter for another shooting excursion in the interior. [...] It was in the dreary month of October when the south-west monsoon howls in all its fury across the mountains ; the mist boiled up from the valleys and swept along the surface of the plains obscuring the view of everything except the pattering rain which descended without ceasing day or night. [...] Every sound was hushed save that of the elements and the distant murmuring roar of countless waterfalls ; not a bird chirped the dank white lichens hung from the branches of the trees and the wretchedness of the place was beyond description. [...] 31 green ; the axe no longer sounded in the forest ; a good house stood in the centre of cultivation ; a road of two miles in length cut through the estate and the whole place looked like an adopted home.' All the trials and disappointments of the beginning were passed away and the real was a picture which I had ideally contemplated years before. [...] 41 The whole of the Ouva district upon the one side and of the Kotmalee district on the other side of the Newera Ellia range of mountains are with the eception of the immediate neighbourhood of Kandy and Colombo the most populous districts of Ceylon.