ares of white paper; some are brilliant
blue, others flashing crimson, others sombre in hue, but showing a
glitter of living light whichever way you turn them. The odd thing is
that the visitors are handling them and turning them over, and examining
them quite freely, while the owner, a wizened old man in horn
spectacles, hardly watches!

"They're not real?"

Indeed they are! Rubies, star-sapphires, opals, and many another
precious stone. That native owner has a queer faith in the honesty of
his customers! Long may it last!

We are only in Colombo for one night, and to-morrow we are going
up-country to stay with a friend of mine, a tea-planter.

As we are undressing you give a sudden start, "What's that?" Only a
lizard scuttling over the dark-washed bedroom wall, first cousin to the
chameleon you saw at Abu Simbel. He is quite harmless and lives on
flies. He runs like a little shadow across the wall and sometimes he
loses his balance and comes down thump on the floor, or breaks his fall
on the mosquito curtains. He is one of the signs that we really are in
the East; here is another. Listen for a moment at the window. There is a
distant barking of dogs, a far-away crow from a defiant cock, a strange
murmurous chant of men, weird cries intermingled, and now and then the
deep beat of a parchment drum. The people of the land are all awake and
stirring though it is late--the East never really sleeps as profoundly
as does the West; there is a restlessness in the blood that stirs too
much, and a pulsating warmth in the air that does not allow of deep
slumber; it is the restlessness of the jungle translated into town life.

Next day at the station we find that the porters, though dressed in neat
blue suits, have pronounced chignons of the same type as their brothers
who draw the rickshaws, and in spite of their European-cut coats and
trousers they run about with bare feet! We might make a museum of the
strange porters we see on our wanderings, collecting a specimen from
each country!

The train is comfortable enough and there is a luncheon-car, so we
shan't starve this time; besides, the journey to Kandy is only a few
hours. There I hope we shall be met, as I haven't the least idea
whereabouts my friend, Mr. Hunter's, tea-plantation is; however, I sent
him a wire yesterday directly we arrived to say we would come by this
train, so he is sure to be there.

The line for the greater part of the way is laid on a terrace or