Just before sunset we went to have a last look at those lovely Botanical Gardens.  They were more beautiful than ever in the afternoon light, and I saw many things which had escaped my notice before.  I have made acquaintance with the taste of all sorts of new fruits while here, more than in our former journey; but this is to be explained by the proximity of the Botanical Gardens.  I expected to revel in fruit all through the tropics, but, except at Tahiti, we have not done so at all.  There is one great merit in tropical fruit, which is, that however hot the sun may be, when plucked from the tree it is always icy cold; if left for a few minutes, however, it becomes as hot as the surrounding atmosphere, and the charm is gone.

On my return, when I went to dress for dinner, I found on my table a nasty-looking black beast about six inches long.  It looked very formidable in the half-light, like a scorpion or centipede.  It turned out, however, to be quite harmless, and a sort of millipede, and rather handsome, with jet-black rings, and hundreds of orange-coloured legs.  There are a great many venomous snakes in Ceylon, but they always get out of the way as fast as they can, and never bite Europeans.  All the roofs of the thatched bungalows swarm with rats, and in every house is kept a rat-snake, which kills and eats these rats.  I more than once heard a great scuffle going on over my bedroom, which generally ended in a little squeak, indicating that the snake had killed, and was about to eat, his prey.  One of the snakes came out one day in front of my window, and hung down two or three feet from the roof.  If I had not been previously assured that he was perfectly harmless, it would have been rather an alarming apparition in the dark, and, even as it was, I must confess that for a moment I did feel rather frightened as I watched him spying about, darting his forked tongue in and out, and looking quite ready for a spring at my face.

Thursday, April 5th.—­Another early start by the seven o’clock train to Colombo.  We were very sorry to say good-bye to our kind host, and when we took our departure, we were quite laden with flowers, good wishes, and messages for mutual friends in England.  It was rather a hot journey down, and the train seemed full, but the scenery was lovely.  As we approached Colombo the heat became greater, and in the town itself it was almost insupportable.

We breakfasted at the hotel in the fort, where we were joined by Tom.  There is one very curious thing about the hotels here.  The sitting-rooms are all two stories high, with pointed raftered roofs.  The bedrooms are only screened off from each other, and from the central room, by partitions eight or ten feet high, so that you can hear everything going on from end to end of the building.  I am not at all sure that the larger amount of ventilation secured by this plan compensates for the extra amount of noise and want of privacy, especially when, as was the case to-day, there is a crying baby who refuses to be pacified in one of the rooms, a poor little girl ill with whooping cough in another, and some very noisy people, who are making themselves both unhappy and cross over some lost keys, in a third.