_March 21st.--Six A.M._--I have been an hour on deck watching the great bright stars eclipse themselves, and the sun break through the clouds right astern of us. It is a lovely day, and we are a little bent over by a breeze from the shore of Ceylon, along which we are now running. _Noon._--Just anchored at Galle, after a run of about 270 miles in twenty-four hours.... We are surrounded by curious boats about two feet wide, prevented from capsizing by _outriggers_--beams of wood _floating_ on the water on one side of them, and attached to them by poles of about eight feet in length. I believe these boats are wonderfully fast and safe. [Sidenote: Ceylon.] _Colombo.--Sunday, March 27th._--We came yesterday to this place. A drive of seventy-two miles through an almost uninterrupted grove of cocoa-nut trees, interspersed with bread-fruit, jack-fruit, and other foliage, with occasional gleams of the _Gloriosa superba_. The music of the ocean waves hissing and thundering on the shore accompanied us all our journey. The road was good and the coach tolerable, so it was pleasant enough. To-day the heat is very great; hardly bearable at church. All Sir H. Ward's family are on the hill--Newra Elyia--some 6,000 feet above the sea; this being the hottest season in Ceylon. My writing is not very good, for I cannot sit still for the heat. I am walking about the room in very light attire, taking up my pen from time to time to indite a few words.