After church we walked to the Government House.  Sir William Gregory is, unfortunately for us, away in Australia, and will not return till just after our departure.  The entrance to it was gay with gorgeous scarlet lilies, brought over by some former Governor from South America.  It is a very fine house, but unfinished.  We wandered through the ‘banquet halls deserted,’ and then sat a little while in the broad cool airy verandah looking into the beautiful garden and on to the mountain beyond.

At half-past eleven it was time to leave this delightfully cool retired spot, and to drive to a very pleasant luncheon, served on a polished round walnut-wood table, without any tablecloth, a novel and pretty plan in so hot a climate.  As soon as it became sufficiently cool we went on round the upper lake and to the hills above, whence we looked down upon Kandy, one of the most charmingly placed cities in the world.  As we came back we stopped for a few minutes at the Court, a very fair specimen of florid Hindoo architecture, where the judges sit, and justice of all kinds is administered, and where the Prince of Wales held the installation of the Order of St. Michael and St. George during his visit.  We also looked in at some of the bazaars, to examine the brass chatties and straw-work.  Then came another delicious rest in the verandah among the flowers until it was time for dinner.  Such flowers as they are!  The Cape jessamines are in full beauty just now, and our host breaks off for us great branches laden with the fragrant bloom.

Monday, April 2nd.—­Before breakfast I took a stroll all round the place, with our host, to look at his numerous pets, which include spotted deer, monkeys, and all sorts of other creatures.  We also went to the stables, and saw first the horses, and the horsekeepers with their pretty Indian wives and children.  Then we wandered down to the bamboo-fringed shores of the river, which rises in the mountains here, and flows right through the island to Trincomalee.

At eleven o’clock Tom and I said ‘good-bye’ to the rest of the party, and went by train to Gampola, to take the coach to Neuera-ellia, where we were to stay with an old friend.  We went only a dozen miles in the train, and then were turned out into what is called a coach, but is really a very small rough wagonnette, capable of holding six people with tolerable comfort, but into which seven, eight, and even nine were crammed.  By the time the vehicle was fully laden, we found there was positively no room for even the one box into which Tom’s things and my own had all been packed; so we had to take out indispensable necessaries, and tie them up in a bundle like true sailors out for a holiday, leaving our box behind, in charge of the station-master, until our return.  The first part of the drive was not very interesting, the road passing only through paddy-fields and endless tea and coffee plantations.  We reached Pusillawa about two o’clock, where we found