by the abundant vegetation behind beautiful shade
trees where swinging hammocks and low music tell of delicious idleness
and restful ease. If you pass through the embowered ways of this
district after nightfall, your path will be lighted by glow-worms and
fireflies, just as phosphorescence illumines the darkness upon the
waters traversed by a ship's hull. It is the bedtime of the flowers,
but their fragrance lingers in the atmosphere and affords the most
careless participant sensuous delight. Here, as in many tropical
regions, the bungalows bear curious individual names, such as: Whist
Bungalow, The Rotunda, The Snuggery, Monsoon Villa, The Rainbow, Storm
Lodge, Palmyra Cottage, and so on. A similar custom prevails in the
West Indies.

In a small front yard of a bungalow at Colpetty, a few climbing vines
of the old-fashioned pink, purple, and white morning-glory greeted the
eye like the smile of a half-forgotten friend. How familiar and
suggestive they were in their sweet simplicity. One thrifty vine had
found lodgment upon a tall Norfolk Island pine, clinging upon its
singularly uniform branches, and making altogether a most delightful
combination of color. In the same inclosure were several tall trees of
the bell-shaped, white datura, the large flowers depending in great
profusion, as beautiful to the eye as they are poisonous to the
palate.

The unending night concerts of the ground and tree frogs in this
vicinity are marvelous for the aggregated noise they produce. At the
expense of calling down anathemas from the good friends whose
hospitality we enjoyed there, it must be added that this croaking was
almost unbearable; worse, if possible, than the symphony and
variations of the tuneful mosquitoes.

The large, fresh-water lake formed by the Kalani-Gunga, which, on its
course from the hills to the sea, covers nearly a hundred miles, straggles
about the town in irregular lines, so that at one point it very nearly
joins the sea. This river has been crossed at Colombo for many years by a
bridge of boats, which has several times been carried away by the turbulent
stream during the season of floods. A substantial iron girder roadway has
lately been added to facilitate travel. The old bridge is formed by a score
of boats firmly anchored, stem and stern, in a straight line, and
supporting a platform laid upon crossbeams, which is fastened to the boats.
The roadway is about five hundred feet long, the river being nearly t