"I returned to the ship, after dinner, in the evening, much gratified with my visit. The mode of living at Ceylon is more English, in all respects, than at Calcutta; the table more simple--the servants fewer--and the whole character of domestic economy less Oriental than we are accustomed to on the Indian Continent; but the scenery of the island itself is far from partaking of this un-Oriental appearance; it realises, in everything, all we fancy and read of in descriptions of tropical islands. The closeness and abundance of the vegetation, the variety of Eastern jungle trees, the palm-like characteristic towering of the cocoa and beetle-nut tree, everywhere prominent in the luxuriant woods around you, all tend to give to Ceylon a picturesque and Eastern style of beauty, very different from the low plains and unvaried flatness of the country in Bengal.
"The dresses of the natives are different from Bengal; men wear combs like the women of other countries, and have a loose cloth round their legs, vastly resembling a petticoat. Their language is the Cingalese; an open and gentle sort of well-vowelled dialect, which sounds prettily and euphoniously enough, like the Malayan language.
"Trade altogether is not very extensive in Ceylon. At Galle there are but three or four merchants, forming the entire mercantile community of the place. At Columbo there are, perhaps, twenty merchants and agents, and there is a Ceylon bank. The local trade is confined to three articles, viz., coffee, cocoa-nut oil, and cinnamon, though a few folks are beginning to turn their attention to sugar. Coffee is reared in plantations on the higher lands, and in chosen spots in the interior. Some of the plantations have done well, and, after the third year, are described as having paid more with the one season's produce than all the preceding and preliminary outlay and price of block put together. Several concerns, however, are losing, the soil being unsuitable; the present low prices for Ceylon coffee, in England, must utterly ruin them. It has been proved, that the only chance of success is with clearances on the forest and large tree lands: the plant thrives in these, though it takes three years to bear, and attains maturity only after the fifth year; it is expected to last ten years. Like all other concerns, those under proprietors themselves fare the best, and are easily distinguishable from those superintended by agents; but all managers live very uncomfortably. The superintendents get about 150 rupees per month, which is little enough, for supplies of the commonest necessity reach only from Kandy, or from a distance, and they are frequently without supplies at all, subsisting then on rice and the poorest produce of the villages around them. The Ceylon coffee itself ranks next to Mocha in the English markets; but recent prices must be insufficient to meet the charges of production. It is planted much in the same manner as with tea in Assam. After clearance, they set the plants at certain distances, when they grow to about the same height as the tea-tree. After blossoming and ripening, and before falling, the fruit is gathered; when there is a simple process, by some wheels and cheap machinery, to clear the berry from the pulp and skin.