"There are many rivers in Ceylon, rising in the high land, and flowing into the sea; but none of them are as long as the Mississippi. The climate of the island is simply magnificent; the average heat in Colombo on the high lands never exceeds 70 deg.. I shall permit you to describe the flowers after you have seen them; but the vegetation generally of the island is exceedingly luxuriant. In regard to animals, the tiger does not reside in Ceylon. The elephant, generally without any tusks, is the chief ruler in the forests here. The bear and the leopard are found. There is no end of monkeys. There are sixteen kinds of bats here, and all your base-ball clubs could be supplied from the stock; and there is a flying fox, which might amuse you if you could catch one. He is a sort of bat; and the more of them you shoot, the better the farmer will be pleased, for they feed on his fruit. Plenty of birds of all sorts are found in the island. The crocodile is the biggest reptile found in Ceylon." "But the snakes, your lordship?" suggested Felix. "There are a few poisonous snakes; and the two worst are the cobra and the ticpolonga, the latter a sort of viper; and the former is an old friend of yours, Mr. McGavonty. The people are called Singhalese, but more generally Cingalese, and are believed to be the descendants of immigrants from the region of the Ganges. There are other races here, as the Malabars. The religion of Ceylon is the Buddhist, and it has a very strong hold upon the natives here as well as in Burma. "Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, is said to have visited Ceylon three times, and to have preached his doctrines here. His sacred footstep on Adam's Peak, 7,420 feet high, the second highest elevation in the island, is still adored by the people. But the most sacred relic here is the tooth of Gautama, kept in an elegant shrine and carefully guarded at Candy. But it is said to be well known that the Portuguese destroyed the original; and the substitute is a discolored bit of ivory, without the least resemblance to a human tooth. There are many temples, sacred caverns, some of them sculptured like those near Bombay. "There is something like ancient history in connection with Ceylon, dating back to 543 B.C.; but it would be hardly edifying to follow it. It has also a Portuguese, a Dutch, and a British period; and it was finally annexed to the British crown by the Treaty of Amiens, in 1802. "Thirty years ago coffee was the principal commercial production of the island; but a kind of fungus attacked the leaves of the trees, and within ten years the planters were obliged to abandon its cultivation to a great extent, though it is still raised. Cacao, which is the name of the chocolate-tree, while cocoa is the name of the product, is cultivated to a considerable extent; so are cinchona, cardamoms, and various spices; though Bishop Heber's lines-- 'What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle,'