lazily watching the setting of the sun.  Directly it dipped below the horizon, glowworms and fireflies came out, bright and numerous as though the stars had come down to tread, or rather fly, a fairy dance among the branches of the tall palm-trees high overhead.  Our rooms were most comfortable, and the baths delicious.  After dinner we all adjourned once more to the verandah to watch the dancing fireflies, the lightning, and the heavy thunderclouds, and enjoy the cool evening breeze.  You in England who have never been in the tropics cannot appreciate the intense delight of that sensation.  Then we went to bed, and passed a most luxurious night of cool and comfortable sleep, not tossing restlessly about, as we had been doing for some time past.

Sunday, April 1st.—­I awoke before daylight.  Our bed faced the windows, which were wide open, without blinds, curtains, or shutters, and I lay and watched the light gradually creeping over the trees, landscape, and garden, and the sun rising glorious from behind the distant mountains, shining brightly into the garden, drawing out a thousand fresh fragrances from every leaf and flower.

By seven o’clock we found ourselves enjoying an early tea within the pretty bungalow in the centre of the Botanic Gardens, and thoroughly appreciating delicious fresh butter and cream, the first we have tasted for ages.  We went for the most delightful stroll afterwards, and saw for the first time many botanical curiosities, and several familiar old friends growing in greater luxuriance than our eyes are even yet accustomed to.  The groups of palms were most beautiful.  I never saw anything finer than the tallipot-palm, and the areca, with the beetle-vine climbing round it; besides splendid specimens of the kitool or jaggery-palm.  Then there was the palmyra, which to the inhabitant of the North of Ceylon is what the cocoa-nut is to the inhabitant of the South—­food, clothing, and lodging.  The pitcher-plants and the rare scarlet amherstia looked lovely, as did also the great groups of yellow and green stemmed bamboos.  There were magnolias, shaddocks, hibiscus, the almost too fragrant yellow-flowered champac, sacred to Hindoo mythology; nutmeg and cinnamon trees, tea and coffee, and every other conceivable plant and tree, growing in the wildest luxuriance.  Through the centre of the gardens flows the river Ambang Ganga, and the whole 140 acres are laid out so like an English park that, were it not for the unfamiliar foliage, you might fancy yourself at home.

We drove back to our host’s to breakfast, and directly afterwards started in two carriages to go to church at Kandy.  The church is a fine large building, lofty, and cool, and well ventilated.  This being Easter Sunday, the building was lavishly decorated with palms and flowers.  The service was well performed, and the singing was excellent.  The sparrows flew in and out by the open doors and windows.  One of the birds was building a nest in a corner, and during the service she added to it a marabout feather, a scrap of lace, and an end of pink riband.  It will be a curious nest when finished, if she adds at this rate to her miscellaneous collection.