Like so many modern seaports Colombo owes everything to engineering. Forty years ago the roadstead was open to the swell from the southwest, except for the shelter of the little headland from which the main breakwater now juts out. In those days our vessel would have called at Galle, a hundred miles away at the southern corner of the island. We can journey to Galle now by railway along the coast, through interminable groves of coconut 3 palms, with glimpses of the sea breaking on the coral reefs on our right and Adam’s peak rising into the clouds on our left. Galle was in early times the chief port of the island, the meeting point of Arab traders from the west and Chinese from the east; it is a picturesque, old-world town, with many relics of the Dutch occupation; but Colombo has now taken its place as the commercial centre. Here is a view of the Galle 4 lighthouse, taken from the walls of the old Dutch fortifications; the building behind the palms is a new Mohammedan mosque. In a quiet corner we see native fishing boats, with more palms in 5 the background. Here again is a Hindu temple, dating from the 6 time of the Dutch occupation; the lions over the gate may perhaps have been copied from some European coat-of-arms, as they look rather different from the usual native devices. Far away in the northeast is Trincomali, a vast landlocked 7 bay, with unlimited deep and safe anchorage, the only good natural harbour in the island, in fact one of the best natural harbours in the whole world. Here was for many years the headquarters of the Navy in Indian waters; but it is out of the track of steamers and away from the capital, so that it has now been dismantled by the Admiralty. The Navy has followed to Colombo the commerce which depends on it for protection, and Trincomali, in spite of its great natural advantages, has sunk back to the position of a third-rate local port. [Illustration: CEYLON.]