Ceylon is one of the most interesting islands in the world. It is the Serendib of the “Arabian Nights,” rich in glorious scenery, equable climate, tropical vegetation, unknown quantities of gems and pearls, and many minerals. The sapphire, ruby, topaz, garnet, and amethyst abound. A sapphire was found in 1853 worth £4,000. Its coffee plantations are a source of great wealth. Palms, flowering shrubs, tree ferns, rhododendrons, as big as timber trees, clothe the island in perennial verdure. The elephant, wild boar, leopard, bear, buffalo, humped ox, deer, palm-cat and civet are common, but there are few dangerous or venomous animals. The Singhalese population, really Hindoo colonists, are effeminate and cowardly. The Kandyans, Ceylonese Highlanders, who dwell in the mountains, are a more creditable race, sturdy and manly. Then there are the Malabars, early Portuguese and Dutch settlers, with a sprinkling of all nationalities. There, too, are the outcast Veddahs, the real wild men of the woods. With them there is no God—no worship. The Rock Veddahs live in the jungle, follow the chase, sleep in caves or in the woods, eat lizards, and consider roast monkey a prime dish. The Village Veddahs are a shade more civilised. One reads constantly in the daily journals of the India, China, or Australian Stations, and the reader may think that they are very intelligible titles. He may be surprised to learn that the East India Station not merely includes the ports of India and Ceylon, but the whole Indian Ocean, as far south as Madagascar, and the east coast of Africa, including Zanzibar and Mozambique, where there are dockyards. The China Station includes Japan, Borneo, Sumatra, the Philippine Islands, and the coast of Kamchatka and Eastern Siberia to Bering Sea. The Australian Station includes New Zealand and New Guinea. The leading stations in China are Hong Kong, Canton, and Shanghai. Vessels bound to the port of Canton have to enter the delta of the Pearl River, the area of which is largely occupied with isles and sandbanks. There are some thirty forts on the banks. When the ship has passed the mouth of this embouchure, which forms, in general terms, a kind of triangle, the sides of which are 100 miles each in length, you can proceed either to the island of Hong Kong, an English colony, or to the old Portuguese settlement of Macao.