Before we start on our tour let us study the map and form some 8 idea of the shape and nature of the land which we are about to visit. Ceylon hangs like a pearl, as the eastern poets say, from the end of India, to which it is nearly joined by the chain of small islands and reefs which lie between the Gulf of Manaar and Palk Strait. So shallow is the passage that large steamers do not venture through, and proposals have already been made for carrying a railway across. Ceylon is almost as large as Ireland; the whole of the north is flat, and a belt of lowland forty to fifty miles wide runs all round the east and south coasts. In the southwest the belt narrows, between the sea and the foothills of the block of highland which fills up much of the interior. This block is an irregular plateau-like country, crossed by ridges from northwest to southeast, cut into by deep gorges and crowned by sharp peaks, many of which rise over six thousand feet. The rivers are short and swift, except where they traverse the broader lowlands of the north and northeast. The southwest corner, with its highlands and coast strip and its entrance at Colombo, is the real Ceylon of to-day; though in former times the coast and the interior had each a distinct and separate life and history.
The whole island is represented in the crowd, bewildering in its variety of face and dress, which greets us on our landing 9 in Colombo. Here is a typical Sinhalese, wearing the _comboy_, a wide length of cloth, of white or striped cotton, which is wrapped round the lower half of the body; his long hair is done up in a knot behind and ornamented with a tortoiseshell comb, which gives a strange appearance to his head. We see this comb, in its most elaborate form, in the portrait of a high-caste 10 Sinhalese; and we notice that, except for the comb, he wears 11 ordinary European dress. Here again is a native in the street wearing a shawl round his shoulders, and yet another with a neat drill jacket; the latter is probably in the service of Europeans. The building behind them is a native theatre, roofed over with green palm leaves. Finally, we have a picture of a typical 12 Sinhalese girl of the lower class.
Then we come on a group of dark-brown men wearing loincloths and turbans and repairing the roadway with pick and shovel; 13 these are Tamil coolies from Southern India, doing the heavy work of the town. Another trots in the shafts of a ricksha, 14 the carriage of the East, which we shall meet again. As we go further into the town, we meet natives from the country districts on their way to market in two-wheeled carts, thatched with 15 leaves of the coconut palm and drawn by little humped bullocks. They wear the _comboy_ and little else, as they are less influenced by foreign ideas than the people of the town. Let us follow them into the _Pettah_, or native quarter, 16 with its trams and rickshas and busy shops. Here we see the carts collected in the open market place, and in the streets we 17 notice a new type of men; these are Moormen or Mohammedans, who carry on much of the business of the town. Some of them wear the fez, which we see at times even in our own country; others, more old-fashioned, wear strange-looking hats shaped like a beehive. On our way back we pass a Hindu temple, which reminds us 18 again that India, its people and its creeds are close at hand.
